Lead Capability Design Manager

What’s in it for you

We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we make sure our Tesco colleague benefits package takes care of you – both in and out of work. Click Here to find out more!

• Annual bonus scheme of up to 20% of base salary
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• 26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years’ service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 6 weeks fully paid paternity leave
• Free 24/7 virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for you and your family, free access to a range of experts to support your mental wellbeing

About the role

Responsible and accountable for designing and implementing the group wide strategy for colleague capability for Tesco group to build deep, strategically critical skills that enable Tesco’s growth ambitions, ensuring colleagues have the specialist expertise required to innovate, adapt and deliver value in a rapidly changing retail landscape. 

You will lead the design of enterprise-wide capability ecosystems focused on strategically critical skill areas (e.g. AI, digital, data, commercial and emerging growth domains), ensuring Tesco has the expertise needed to innovate, scale and compete in a rapidly changing retail landscape. 

This role goes beyond traditional learning design. You will help shape long-term skill investment, influence senior stakeholders, and ensuring learning delivers measurable business impact.

You will be responsible for

Strategic Capability Leadership:

• Lead the end-to-end strategy for building technical skills in defined strategic growth areas aligned to Tesco’s business strategy. 

• Translate enterprise strategy and business roadmaps into clear capability and skills priorities. 

• Partner with senior business leaders, talent, workforce planning and technology teams to shape strategic skill priorities. Anticipate future skills needs and translate them into scalable, sustainable capability solutions. 

• Shape long-term roadmaps that balance immediate business demand with future readiness. 

• Act as a trusted advisor, challenging thinking and influencing investment decisions 

• Own technical capability frameworks, skill taxonomies aligned to organizational standards. 

Stakeholder & SME Partnership 

• Act as a strategic partner to senior business leaders, technical experts and functional heads. 

• Shape learning priorities collaboratively, ensuring strong business ownership and relevance. 

• Enable subject matter experts to contribute effectively to capability building without over-reliance on them.

Learning Design & Delivery 

• Design and oversee blended, scalable learning solutions (academies, pathways, credentials, on-the-job learning, communities of practice). 

• Ensure learning is practical, role-relevant and embedded into ways of working—not standalone training. 

• Balance build vs buy decisions, leveraging internal expertise, external partners and digital platforms effectively. 

AI & Digital Enablement 

• Champion the use of AI and digital technologies to accelerate, personalise and scale learning. 

• Design learning that builds both AI fluency and deep specialist capability, embedding responsible AI principles. 

• Act as a role model for modern, digitally enabled capability design

You will need

Significant experience designing enterprise-level capability solutions, not just individual learning interventions. 

Significant experience in learning, capability or workforce development roles, with exposure to technical or specialist skill domains. 

Proven ability to design learning strategies aligned to growth priorities. 

• Proven ability to build capability aligned to strategic business priorities. 

• Strong understanding of skills frameworks, job architecture and enterprise skills taxonomies. 

• Exposure to digital, technology or other complex technical domains. Experience operating in large matrix organisations. 

• Familiarity with accreditation, certification or professional standards in technical disciplines. 

About us

You might know us as a supermarket, technology company or even for our award-winning mobile network. Truth is, we’re all of those things, and much more. Our colleagues work with one goal in mind, helping to make every day a little better for our customers, colleagues and communities all over the world. No two customers are the same, neither are our colleagues.

At Tesco, we champion a balance that lets you thrive both in and out of work. Spend 60% of your week collaborating with colleagues at our office locations or local sites and the rest remotely. Whether you're just kicking off your career, juggling passions, or navigating big life events, we're here to support you. We always welcome a conversation about flexible working, so talk to us throughout your application about how we can support.

We're proud to be an accredited Disability Confident Leader, where everyone’s welcome. That’s why we commit to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. If you need support with your application, click here for more information. And if you're interested in joining our team but don't tick every box, don't let that hold you back from applying.