Sales Team Manager / Head of Sales

Role: Sales Team Manager

Location: Cloudwater Brew Co, Piccadilly Industrial Estate, Manchester, M1 2NP

Salary: Depending on experience (£35,000-£40,000)

Hours: 37.5 hours a week, including weekends and evening work

Cloudwater Brew Co is a small independent brewery in Manchester, UK, with a focus on making exciting flavour combinations in modern beer, relaxing experiences for our customers, and a positive and progressive environment centered on the personal growth, holistic health and happiness of our team.

All job vacancies at Cloudwater are open to everyone of all races, all genders, all love-centered beliefs, and any backgrounds. Please read our Equality and Equity Policy for more information.

This role will be a permanent contract.

We are looking for an ambitious, commercially driven, and highly capable sales leader to take ownership of our national sales function and help drive the next stage of growth for our business.

This is not a role for someone who simply manages accounts.

We are looking for someone who can build momentum, create accountability, develop strong commercial relationships, and translate opportunity into measurable growth across multiple routes to market.

You will play a key leadership role within the business, working closely with senior leadership to align commercial growth with operational capability, production planning, and long-term strategic objectives.

This is an opportunity for someone who wants to help build a stronger, smarter, and more commercially disciplined business.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

• Driving sustainable sales growth across all sales channels
• Leading and developing the sales team
• Managing and growing key national and regional customer relationships
• Identifying and securing new business opportunities
• Developing sales strategies and commercial growth plans
• Improving forecasting, pipeline visibility, and commercial reporting
• Aligning sales activity with operational and production planning
• Supporting commercially sustainable growth across the business
• Building stronger commercial structure, accountability, and performance standards

Who We’re Looking For

You should bring:

• Minimum 5+ years’ experience in sales
• Significant experience operating in senior commercial leadership roles such as Sales Director, Head of Sales, National Sales Manager or equivalent senior sales leadership position
• Proven success delivering revenue growth and managing key commercial relationships
• Experience leading and developing sales teams
• Strong commercial negotiation and relationship management skills
• Strong forecasting, planning, and organisational capability
• A proactive, accountable, and growth-oriented mindset

Essential Requirements

• Strong understanding of the UK craft beer industry and route-to-market structures
• Experience delivering against revenue and margin targets
• Strong commercial and financial awareness
• Experience with forecasting, reporting, and sales planning
• Full, clean UK driving licence
• Willingness to travel nationally as required

Candidates with additional experience and expertise may wish to instead apply for a Head of Sales role. This role covers all of the requirements and responsibilities above with additional requirements and responsibilities listed below.

Role: Head of Sales

Location: Cloudwater Brew Co, Piccadilly Industrial Estate, Manchester, M1 2NP

Salary: Depending on experience (£45,000-£55,000)

Hours: 37.5 hours a week, including weekends and evening work

Overview

We are looking for a highly capable, commercially astute Head of Sales to take full ownership of the commercial performance of our wholesale business (circa 80-85% of our volume) and work closely with our Senior Management and Retail Managers to best support our retail business (circa 15-20% of our volume), and lead the next stage of our development.

This is a senior leadership role with responsibility not just for sales delivery, but for defining and shaping how the business develops and what success looks like.

You will set the commercial strategy, optimise our route-to-market, and ensure that revenue growth is aligned with profitability, brand positioning, and operational capability.

This role requires someone who can operate at both strategic and operational levels — setting direction while ensuring it translates into results.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

Commercial Strategy, Revenue, Margin \& Performance Ownership:

• Defining and leading the overall sales and commercial strategy
• Owning route-to-market strategy across wholesale, retail, DTC, and export
• Optimising customer and channel mix to drive profitable growth
• Identifying and unlocking new market opportunities
• Full accountability for revenue, gross margin, and commercial performance
• Setting pricing strategy and maintaining margin discipline
• Leading commercial planning, budgeting, and forecasting cycles
• Improving forecast accuracy and demand planning

Leadership \& Team Development:

• Leading and developing the sales function and its structure
• Building a high-performance, accountable, and scalable sales organisation
• Setting clear targets, KPIs, and performance frameworks
• Acting as the commercial bridge between sales, production, marketing, and finance
• Aligning demand generation with operational capacity and production planning
• Contributing to range planning and product strategy based on commercial insight

Key Relationships \& Market Presence:

• Owning senior customer relationships and strategic partnerships
• Representing the business at a senior level across the industry

Who We’re Looking For

You should bring:

• Significant experience in senior commercial leadership roles (Head of Sales, Sales Director, Commercial Director, or equivalent)
• Proven track record of delivering and scaling revenue growth in a multi-channel business
• Experience defining and executing commercial strategy
• Strong financial and commercial acumen, including pricing and margin management
• Experience operating at senior leadership or board level
• Ability to balance brand, growth, and profitability considerations
• Experience working in complex, supply-constrained or production-led environments

Essential Requirements

• Strong understanding of the UK craft beer industry and route-to-market structures
• Demonstrated ownership of revenue and margin performance
• Advanced forecasting, planning, and reporting capability
• Full, clean UK driving licence
• Willingness to travel nationally and internationally where required

Please visit our website to apply

We are accepting applications until 21st May 2026. Interviewing w/c 25th May 2026

If you are excited to commit to contributing towards our business strategy and offering customers a unique and exciting experience, please and have your CV ready to upload.

Pay: £35,000.00-£40,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Casual dress
• Company pension
• Employee discount
• Free parking
• On-site parking

Work Location: In person