Job Description

Working Pattern: 5 days in office, with core hours flexible between 8am-6pm. A minimum of 2 days a week in the Clients offices and 3 days at NEXT.

The Role
We are looking for a dynamic Brand Specialist to drive the growth of our Brand’s full-price sales across NEXT UK and NEXT International. This is a fantastic opportunity to become a key player in shaping the brand’s presence and success within a leading retail environment.

Reporting into the Head of Merchandising, the Brand Specialist will work closely with cross-functional teams including Buying, Merchandising, Design, and Marketing to accelerate brand growth and maximise business opportunities.

What You'll Take On
You will be responsible for leveraging data insights to optimise product ranging, trading strategies, and marketing activities that deliver results. You’ll build strong partnerships both internally at NEXT and externally with key client stakeholders to ensure alignment and success.

You will:

• Be accountable for growing the Brands full price sales through NEXT UK, NEXT International and SEASONS (where applicable).
• Build partnerships across key stakeholders at NEXT - including Buying, Merchandising, Design, Marketing teams - to accelerate brand growth and maximise business opportunities.
• Build partnerships with the Clients senior leads.

Product Ranging

• Support budget planning, option planning, ranking.
• Support the Buyer on product assortment by using insights from previous/current seasons, also leverage brand information to drive assortment decisions.
• Identify growth opportunities through Label data analysis.

Trading

• Continual review of sales by size and responsible for updating size guidelines.
• Support in season trading and replenishment, access to Brands available stock file to make quick decisions.
• Implement and review the performance of Label +, continually reviewing conversion to stock and switching off slow lines.
• Optimise International sales opportunities through data insights.
• Reviews markdown / RTB.
• Conduct regular competition analysis.
• Ensure all new AI functionality is being implemented.
• Daily checks to ensure operations are running to SLA’s, items live, refurb queries etc…

Marketing

• Work with brand leads to continually ensure best in class content and brands assets are utilised.
• Responsible for best in class delivery of the brand in terms of copy, imagery, tabbing, social media exposure (based on tiering).
• Ensure the product is placed in all relevant BAU campaigns.
• Responsible for ensuring the brand is aligned to NEXT’s sustainability vision.
• Work in collaboration with marketing and clients to drive traffic initiatives.
• Supports implementation of SEO enhancements.

Meetings

• Responsible for reporting sales weekly/ monthly and driving actions to support growth.
• Organise monthly and quarterly performance meetings.
• Follow through all actions from meetings.
• Attend relevant internal client meetings.
• Attend all buys.
  

What You'll Bring
You will be a proactive, commercially savvy professional with a keen eye for data and detail. Confident in building relationships across teams, you thrive in collaborative environments and know how to influence decision-making at all levels. Your experience in trading, ranging, and brand management means you understand how to translate insights into action. A highly organised self-starter, you are driven to deliver measurable impact and take pride in pushing the brand forward within a fast-paced retail setting. A passion for brand excellence and sustainability will see you stand out in this role.

Sponsorship
Candidates wishing to apply who would require sponsorship for this role will be required to meet the Home Office sponsorship requirements. For further information please see: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa

We encourage early applications for our roles, as our recruitment process begins as soon as the role is advertised. If we successfully fill the position, this advert may close earlier than planned.

At NEXT, we believe the best work happens when there are no barriers to collaboration. That’s why we are a Google-powered workspace. From your very first day, you’ll be using the full Google Workspace suite; Docs, Drive, and Meet, to stay connected and move fast.

If your previous experience is rooted in other software suites, don’t worry! We’ll point you to a digital Google toolkit the moment you join, packed with handy guides and insider tips to help you transition smoothly and hit the ground running.

#LI-Onsite

You know Next, but did you know we’re a FTSE-100 retail company employing over 44,000 people across the Next group. We’re the UK’s 2nd largest fashion retailer and for Kidswear we’re the market leader. At the last count we have over 450 stores, plus the Next Online and it’s now possible to buy on-line from over 80 countries around the world! So we’ve gone global!