Sales and marketing recruitment inFMCG & Consumer Goods
Recruitment for sales and marketing roles across food, drink, household, personal care, consumer products, branded goods and high-volume retail supply.
Recent result
3-person shortlist within 4 weeks of taking the brief.
£452bn
UK manufacturers’ product sales, 2025
€19bn
Ireland food, drink & horticulture exports, 2025
In FMCG & Consumer Goods, commercial success has to survive the journey from plan to purchase.
A product can have strong consumer research, great creative and enthusiastic customers and still struggle commercially. It has to be available, correctly priced, visible in the right channels and worthwhile for the retailer, distributor or customer supporting it.
Sales professionals work across that whole equation. Securing distribution is important, but what happens afterwards determines whether the product keeps its place. Rate of sale, margin, availability, promotion, repeat purchase and the value it adds to the category all start to matter.
Marketing has its own version of the same challenge. Creating consumer demand only works when people can find and buy the product. Strong FMCG marketers understand how brand, shopper behaviour, pricing, retail execution and supply work together rather than treating the campaign as the end of the job.
What do employers look for in FMCG & Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing professionals?
FMCG experience becomes more meaningful when you understand the category, customer, channel and economics behind it.
Consideration
Category & Consumer Understanding
Strong professionals understand the behaviours, needs and trends shaping the relevant category. This helps them distinguish lasting changes in demand from short-lived attention and make decisions grounded in how consumers actually choose and buy.
Take these into your next interview. A free hiring checklist for FMCG & Consumer Goods.
Get the checklistRoles we recruit in FMCG & Consumer Goods
Sales
Sales that win distribution and growth
Sales Director
Leads customer, channel and revenue strategy across grocery, wholesale, ecommerce, foodservice or specialist retail while protecting margin and supply.
National Account Manager
Owns major retailer relationships, negotiations, joint business plans, forecasts, promotions and performance across agreed categories.
Commercial Controller
Coordinates customer strategy, pricing, trade investment, forecasting and team performance across a group of strategically important accounts.
Category Development Manager
Uses category, shopper and retailer data to identify growth opportunities and build commercially persuasive range, space and activation recommendations.
Business Development Manager
Develops new customers, channels, territories or partnerships and converts opportunities into sustainable distribution and revenue.
What employers look for in sales
Employers may be looking for someone who can:
• Understand the customer's commercial priorities. Retailers and distributors need a reason to support the product beyond enthusiasm for the brand.
• Build a category case. Strong account people can explain the shopper need, category opportunity and value the product adds to the range.
• Manage the economics properly. Price, margin, promotional funding, trade spend, forecast and customer terms all affect the value of the business being won.
• Turn distribution into sell-through. A listing or customer agreement is only useful if the product reaches the right places and actually sells.
• Understand the route to market. Grocery, convenience, wholesale, foodservice, ecommerce and distributor-led sales require different commercial instincts.
• Work across the business. Forecasting, supply, product development, finance and operations can all determine whether the promise made to a customer can be delivered.
A polished buyer presentation is useful. Experienced people also know the customer needs an argument they can use internally: why the product deserves space, what it adds to the category and how it will perform commercially.
Marketing
Marketing that builds consumer demand
Marketing Director
Leads portfolio, brand and consumer strategy, balancing long-term brand growth with commercial delivery across customers and channels.
Brand Manager
Owns brand positioning, planning, campaigns, innovation support and performance, coordinating closely with sales, insight and supply teams.
Shopper Marketing Manager
Develops activity that converts consumer demand at the point of purchase across retailers, ecommerce, wholesale or foodservice channels.
Innovation Manager
Identifies and develops product or proposition opportunities using consumer insight, commercial viability and cross-functional delivery.
Consumer Insights Manager
Turns research, behavioural data and market evidence into clear recommendations for brand, category, innovation and customer decisions.
What employers look for in marketing
The stronger FMCG & Consumer Goods marketers tend to:
• Connect brand activity with purchase behaviour.
• Understand availability and distribution. Generating demand for something shoppers cannot find wastes both attention and investment.
• Think beyond promotional uplift. Increased volume may come with reduced margin, cannibalisation or demand simply being brought forward.
• Understand the channel. What works on a supermarket shelf may not work in foodservice, Amazon, pharmacy or D2C.
• Work closely with Sales and Category. Shopper insight, customer priorities and brand strategy need to support one another.
• Stay close to execution. Pricing, ranging, product information, displays, stock and ecommerce visibility can all change what happens after the campaign launches.
Promotion is a particularly good example. A large uplift can look impressive while the underlying activity loses money or weakens base sales afterwards. Experienced marketers become much more interested in incrementality, margin, execution and what happens when the promotion ends.
Same CV. Different Capability.
FMCG titles can look highly transferable while concealing very different experience.
Two National Account Managers may both show major customers, joint business plans, promotions and strong revenue.
One may operate within an established range and promotional calendar; another may own pricing, trade investment, range negotiations, category arguments and the commercial choices behind growth.
Channel experience matters too: grocery, convenience, wholesale and foodservice can build very different judgement under the same title.
Professional A
National Account Manager
- Owns joint business planning and range reviews
- Negotiates pricing and promotional investment
- Uses category data to influence retailer decisions
Professional B
National Account Manager
- Manages wholesale or distributor relationships
- Builds outlet penetration through indirect channels
- Understands distributor economics and downstream execution
- Influences sell-through beyond the immediate customer
We find out which one you need. Brief a role
Case study
Trade Marketing Manager search had stalled for 6+ weeks with another recruitment agency.
We revisited the brief in detail, identified where the previous search had been missing the market and directly approached relevant FMCG professionals. That produced a final shortlist of three experienced trade marketing professionals.
3-person shortlist within 4 weeks of taking the brief.
The FMCG & Consumer Goods Economy
+12%
Irish food, drink & horticulture export growth, 2025
THE UK PICTURE:
Food and drink remains the UK’s largest manufacturing sector. Food manufacturing accounted for 22.9% of all UK manufacturers’ product sales in 2025, equivalent to roughly £103.5 billion. Across the wider food and drink manufacturing industry, around 485,000 people are employed by more than 12,000 manufacturers. UK food and drink exports reached a record £25.6 billion in 2025, although export volumes remained below pre-Brexit levels. (Office for National Statistics; Food & Drink Federation)
THE IRISH PICTURE:
Ireland’s food, drink and horticulture exports reached a record €19 billion in 2025, up 12% year on year. Dairy accounted for €7.3 billion, meat and livestock exceeded €5 billion, prepared consumer foods reached €3.6 billion and drinks approximately €2 billion. The UK remained Ireland’s largest individual export market, receiving €6.7 billion of food, drink and horticulture exports during the year. (Bord Bia)
Behind those numbers is an unusually varied commercial landscape. Grocery multiples, convenience, wholesale, foodservice, pharmacy, e-commerce and D2C each create different buying cycles, margins, promotional pressures and relationships with customers and consumers.
Building your Sales & Marketing career in FMCG & Consumer Goods
Career progression usually brings responsibility for more of the relationship between consumer demand, customer economics and commercial execution.
SALES
Sales careers may begin in field sales, business development, account support or individual customers before progressing into key accounts, national accounts, channel leadership, commercial management or Sales leadership.
As responsibility grows, the conversation changes.
People become more involved in joint business planning, range strategy, pricing, promotional investment, forecasting, category performance and decisions around where the business should put its commercial resources.
Exposure to different channels can broaden that judgement considerably. Grocery multiples, discounters, wholesale, convenience, foodservice, pharmacy and ecommerce each create different customer dynamics.
Senior Sales professionals are increasingly expected not simply to negotiate well, but to understand whether the business being won can be supplied, supported and delivered profitably.
MARKETING
Marketing careers can begin across brand, digital, trade, shopper, category, ecommerce or individual campaigns.
More senior roles tend to bring those perspectives closer together.
A Brand Manager may progress from delivering campaigns and launches towards responsibility for portfolio strategy, pricing, innovation and commercial performance. Trade and Shopper Marketing can develop into broader customer and category leadership, while digital and ecommerce careers increasingly involve retail media, marketplaces, CRM and direct consumer relationships.
Cross-functional exposure matters particularly in FMCG.
Marketing decisions can affect forecasting, production, stock, customer relationships and margin. Sales decisions can affect the brand, promotional strategy and consumer proposition.
People who have worked across those boundaries often develop a much fuller understanding of why a product performs well in the market rather than simply knowing what their own function contributed.
For employers
For employers, we look beyond the obvious brand names and job titles and spend time understanding the categories, customers, channels and commercial responsibility behind someone's experience.
Discuss a Sales or Marketing HireFor professionals
For professionals, we help make sense of the experience you have built, what you are genuinely good at and where that might take you next.
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