British Garden Centres • Wickford, Essex
About this role
Garden Centre Department Manager Leisure
Location
Alton
Contract type
Permanent
Hours
Full Time
Hours
45 Hours Including Weekends
About Us
British Garden Centres is the UK’s largest family owned garden centre group, with over 78 centres nationwide. Founded by the Stubbs family, the business has grown rapidly through significant expansion and acquisitions, evolving from its first site at Woodthorpe Garden Centre into a national brand.
The group now includes garden centres, restaurants, nurseries and distribution centres, employing more than 3,500 colleagues across the UK. Despite its scale, British Garden Centres maintains strong family values, a community focus, and a commitment to providing a welcoming and supportive environment for both customers and employees.
We are looking for a Garden Centre Department Manager to join our forward-thinking team. Working in the Garden Centre this is a high-volume environment with a fast turnaround.
The successful candidate should have proven managerial experience and be physically fit as this is a very hands-on role and some heavy lifting may be required.
A knowledge of plants would be a “nice to have” but is not essential to the role, however, excellent customer service and a high standard of visual merchandising is required as is previous retail management experience.
You will be working in our seasonal department across the Centre being involved with planning and building all our seasonal changes. Setting up for Christmas.
What we offer
Benefits include onsite car parking and staff discount for our Garden Centres and Restaurants as well as the Woodthorpe Leisure Park.
If you would like to join our family run business and bring your ideas and talents to our fast-growing company and forward-thinking team, we want to hear from you. Must have at least 2 yrs experience at Department Manager level or higher within a retail setting.
Duties include
Managing Garden Centre people resources
Forward planning of work schedule
Daily resource management to support effective customer service requirements
Deployment of the team to deliver excellent shop floor standards
Managing cash/till operations
Ordering
Operational Audit for compliance in those areas
Key holder responsibilities to assist with opening and closing of the centres
How to Apply
Please send your CV to Emily Bartholomew Centre Manager ebartholomew@britishgardencentres.com
Applications close – Wednesday 17th June 2026
Due to the high volume of applications, we will only contact you if your application is successful