Customer & Marketing Graduate Scheme 2025

Customer & Marketing Graduate Scheme 2025

Contract type: Permanent

Scheme Start Date: September 2025

Location: Hatfield (Blended working - 2-3 days in the office)

Working hours per week: 40 hours

Level: Entry Level - Graduate

Application Opening Date: Monday 28th October

Application Closing Date: Sunday 17th November

To read more about Ocado Retail and our Graduate schemes, visit our Careers Page!

About Us

Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value. 

We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading, joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket ocado.com. Not only is Ocado.com the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind Zoom by Ocado, our same-day grocery delivery service. 

Customer & Marekting at Ocado Retail

As part of Ocado’s Customer & Marketing team, you’ll join a dynamic, innovative group dedicated to understanding and enhancing every aspect of the customer journey.
Within Ocado Retail’s Customer & Marketing department, we have Brand Marketing (this is the team that’s responsible for our TV ads and *that* catchy jingle “There’s an Ocado Just For You”, and our CRM team at the coalface of our daily customer comms with trade-driving emails, SMS and push notifications. There’s our Trade Marketing team who help deliver our customer comms calendar and then our Digital Marketing team who go fishing every day in the digital pools for new customers. Team Content and Social Media is delivering daily joy to our customers in the form of a monthly magazine, daily mouthwatering recipes, and mesmerising TikToks. And of course, our PR & Comms team who spend their time shouting about all the reasons that make Ocado both a great place to work and a great place to shop. And, not forgetting, we lastly have our Eat Creative in-house agency which makes the creative magic happen!

The end goal is that you will be provided with the support and training to reach an executive level at the end of your two-year graduate scheme within the Marketing department or wider business.

 

What you’ll do

• In this role, you’ll be empowered to bring fresh ideas and innovative thinking to customer acquisition, engagement, and retention initiatives, helping shape how we connect with millions of customers. Join us to learn from top industry professionals and make a meaningful impact from day one!
• Every six months you will have the opportunity to rotate into a different customer function based on your performance preference, and business priorities at that time. Potential rotations and projects include, but are not limited to:
  • CRM: be responsible for your own weekly and monthly email campaigns end-to-end
  • Brand Marketing: covers end-to-end campaign activity across media, creative and post-campaign analysis.
  • Trade Marketing: assist with the delivery of Ocado’s customer campaigns, with end-to-end project management and collaboration with all departments  
  • PR & Comms: join a busy press office managing external comms and also look after Ocado’s LinkedIn strategy and all internal comms 
  • Organic Social: Be responsible for Ocado’s daily social posts, from planning and briefing to scheduling and reporting
  • Digital Marketing: support in the scaling of Ocado’s digital strategy across a range of channels (affiliates, influencers, print, M&S, partnerships, innovation)
• Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to do regular general and role-specific training, including access to the Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications

Who you are

• Curiosity: Curious about the customer and hungry to discover what makes our shoppers tick
• Passion for Innovation: Enthusiasm for retail technology, e-commerce, and customer engagement. Can you bring a fresh perspective and help us build the supermarket of tomorrow, today?
• Data Driven & Analytical Mindset: Strong problem-solving skills with an ability to interpret data and translate it into actionable insights. Can you turn information 
• Creative collaborator: Are you a team player who can inspire action with your big (and small) ideas?
• Adaptability: Able to thrive in a fast-paced environment with a proactive approach.
• Communication Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication skills to engage with diverse teams and stakeholders.

Expectations During and After the Scheme

• As a graduate on the Ocado Customer & Marketing program, you’ll actively contribute to team projects, demonstrate creativity, and drive results that impact real business objectives.
• We expect you to bring a proactive attitude, embrace learning opportunities, and quickly adapt to new challenges and technologies. 
• Regular feedback sessions will help you identify your strengths, refine your goals, and maximise your development.
• On successful completion of the 2-year program, we aim to place you in a permanent role within our Customer & Marketing team, where you’ll have the opportunity to specialise.
• We expect that graduates who complete the scheme will have a strong understanding of Ocado’s customer-centric approach, the analytical skills to drive success and the confidence to manage projects independently.

What You Need To Apply

• CV and Cover Letter  - Why Ocado Retail? Why this scheme? What do you hope to achieve/gain?
• Graduate from an accredited UK University, with a minimum 2:2 
• The legal right to work in the United Kingdom upon scheme commencement and duration of the scheme
• Commercial awareness and problem-solving ability

When will you hear from us?

We love that we get loads of amazing applications for our graduate schemes. To recognise that, we aim to keep you informed throughout the process.

To start with, we’ll take a look through each application and whether successful or not, we’ll let you know. Applications will close on Sunday 17th November 2024. Our aim to be in touch with anyone who’s applied within 2 weeks of that date.

After that, we’ll keep you informed between each stage. Given how many great applications we get, it can take some time, so please bear with us in between updates.

We treat all applications respectfully and fairly so unfortunately, if you miss the closing date we won't be able to make exceptions to extend stages. This wouldn't be fair to those candidates who have completed them!

How will we contact you?

Email, so make sure you’ve added careers@ocadoretail.com to your safe senders.

Our Learning & Development Promise:

There are great opportunities to grow careers within our high-performing and innovative business. These range from deepening your experience and expertise to potentially taking on management responsibility or even pivoting your career to do something completely different. 

Our career management principles exist to help the realisation of career ambitions, whatever they might be.

Driven by you

You are in the driving seat of your career. We all have a responsibility to do the things that can help move our careers forward. That could mean completing some learning, using our career stories to understand how your colleagues have got to where they are today, or applying for a new role.

Supported by your manager

You should feel that you can have open and productive conversations with your manager about your career and development. They are there to coach you, act as a mentor, signpost opportunities and be an advocate for you within the business.

Backed by ORL

We are committed to ensuring that the right tools are there for you. Our learning system ‘Walnut’ is your one-stop shop for all your learning needs. 

What’s in it for you

By joining Ocado Retail you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail. 

If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:

Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with the option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more. 

Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.  

Never miss the moments that matter: Blended/Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy an extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities. 

Everyone’s welcome

We’re an equal opportunities employer. That means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. If you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.