Head of Food & Beverage

Category: Support Centre - Ops Support Centre

Location: : Houghton Regis

Location: Field based Salary: £125k to £150k per annum depending on skills and experienceJob type: Permanent, Full Time


For nearly 300 years, Whitbread has helped shape hospitality in the UK. We’ve evolved and adapted many times along the way and we’re entering another important chapter now – focusing our business around our hotels, with big ambitions for growth in the UK and Ireland.

 

But one thing isn’t changing: food and drink remains a huge part of the Premier Inn experience, enjoyed by millions of our guests every year. The question now is what that experience should look like in the future – what we serve, how we serve it and how we make it work brilliantly across a growing hotel estate.

 

That’s where our new Head of Food & Beverage comes in. This is a chance to lead our end-to-end F&B strategy and help create a simpler, stronger Premier Inn-led offer that takes everything we’ve learned from decades of serving guests and shaping what comes next.

 

What you’ll do:

  • Own and develop our long-term F&B strategy, helping shape what a Premier Inn-led food and drink offer looks like.
  • Lead the development of menus and propositions that respond to changing guest needs while being practical to deliver brilliantly at scale.
  • Build and lead our new approach to F&B operational excellence, moving more capability into the field and giving hotel teams the coaching, skills and support they need to deliver brilliantly.
  • Bring together food development and operations, from kitchen design and equipment through to systems and the successful introduction of new menus and initiatives.
  • Shape how we bring our F&B offer to life for guests, from our promotional calendar and on-site experience to how food and drink shows up across the Premier Inn digital journey.
  • Use insight and strong commercial judgement to grow F&B performance, improving conversion, guest spend, menu contribution and margin.
  • Lead and develop a multi-disciplinary F&B team, while shaping the capability we’ll need for the future.

 

What you’ll bring:

  • You’ll be an experienced F&B leader who understands what it takes to make great food and drink work across a large, multi-site hospitality business.
  • You’ll have led significant change before, whether that’s evolving menus, transforming an operating model or taking an F&B proposition in a new direction and you’ll be equally comfortable thinking strategically and getting close to how things actually work in hotels and kitchens.
  • You’ll bring strong commercial judgement, an understanding of the levers that drive F&B performance and the ability to bring people with you across Operations, Procurement, Marketing, Finance and Property.
  • Most importantly, you’ll see the opportunity that’s right here right now: to take an F&B business already serving millions of guests and help define what food and drink at Premier Inn looks like next.

 

Why you’ll love it here:

  • Annual incentive up to 50%
  • Private healthcare up to family cover
  • Company car or car allowance
  • Up to 10% matched pension
  • Sharesave Scheme
  • 25 days holiday plus the option to buy up to 5 additional days per year
  • Up to 60% discount on Premier Inn stays 
  • Employee Assistance Programme

 

At Whitbread, we believe everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We’re committed to being an inclusive organisation that values diversity and welcomes applications whatever your background or situation. We’re also open to flexible working and, wherever possible, will try to support this.

 


We believe that everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We are committed to being an inclusive organisation that values diversity and welcomes your application whatever your background or situation.

Under-represented groups such as women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities & members of the LGBTQIA+ community (those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans and non-binary or those who use a different LGBTQIA+ term), are strongly encouraged to build a career with us. Speak to us about workplace adjustments, part-time and flexible working. Where possible we will support this.

Job ref: 203191-4492
Advertised: 17 Aug 2026
Application closed: 29 Aug 2026

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About Us
A new kind of hotel for Premier Inn

A new kind of hotel for Premier Inn

The first ZIP will be opening in Cardiff March 2019, with more coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled for a ZIP near you.