Apply to 4 Top UK Retailers
This playbook is built around four of the UK's biggest grocery employers — Iceland, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco — which between them recruit for tens of thousands of roles each year across stores, depots, delivery fleets and head office functions. Together they offer one of the widest ranges of entry points in the country, from part-time weekend shifts to graduate schemes and senior commercial careers, and their hiring processes share enough common ground that preparing for one meaningfully improves your odds at the others.
Pay across the four is broadly comparable, since all benchmark closely against each other and the Real Living Wage. As a guide, store colleagues and customer assistants typically sit around £12 to £13 an hour, with a premium of roughly a pound more inside London and the M25. Team leaders and supervisors generally earn £13 to £15 an hour, while deputy and assistant store managers usually fall in the £28,000 to £40,000 salary band. Store managers range widely by store size and format, commonly £38,000 to £60,000 or more. Warehouse and distribution roles pay similarly to store roles but with shift premiums, and HGV drivers often reach £35,000 to £45,000. Head office, technology and graduate positions typically start around £28,000 and climb steeply with specialism.
Always confirm current figures directly on each employer's careers site before applying.
Below is the complete step-by-step guidance for each company, so you can apply effectively and in an ATS-optimised way.
Open the first company to start. Each page ends with a link to the next one.
Apply to Iceland