Buyers Assistant Industrial Placement 2025

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands.

At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

Position overview

We are offering a 12-month placement at one of our two Ralph Lauren Head offices located in Watford and New Bond Street, London. The successful candidate will provide integral operational support to the buying team, to ensure we achieve our department financial plans, and our seasonal strategies are realized from inception all the way to implementation in store. The candidate should have an interest in product within the premium apparel market and be keen to understand the end-to-end buying process within Ralph Lauren. The successful candidate should be prepared to travel to one of these offices regularly and be available for a full year from 18th August 2025 – 28th August 2026.

To be eligible for this internship, you should either be needing a year in industry to complete your university or college degree, or you demonstrate a considerable interest in starting your career in the fashion and retail industry.

You must have the right to work in the UK and would need to provide it at the Assessment Day if successful in securing an interview.

Please ensure you include a cover letter as part of your application.

Key responsibilities

• Autonomous and Accurate Delivery and Purchase Order Management. Clear communication of orders status, challenges, and opportunities to wider team.
• Meticulous data integrity and management of daily, weekly, and seasonal buying responsibilities; deliveries, pricing, assortment updates, and general admin support.
• Ability to navigate required tools and systems, as well as troubleshoot any issues and identify better ways of working to improve efficiency.
• Demonstrate and communicate awareness of retail landscape; conduct research on competitive set including pricing, style, and key messages and translate findings into actions.
• Support in preparing necessary documents and resources for major calendar meetings, including Hindsight, Buy Review and Sign Off.
• Agile Outlook and email management to maintain department critical path.
• Able to analyse business reports with support from manager to broaden knowledge. Develop the ability to draw top line conclusions and actions from analysis to influence future buys.

Training and development

• To adopt a positive and proactive approach to their own training and development as well as that of their peers.
• Proactively promotes improvements to working practices and systems.
• Participates in company initiatives as appropriate.

Communications partnerships

Creates and maintains strong working relationships within cross-functional teams: Assortment Planning, Trading & Allocations, Retail Store teams, Global Production and Merchandising teams, and Brand Presentation team to ensure the department critical path is maintained to the highest standard.

Experience, skills and knowledge

• Awareness of product trends and current state of market.
• Good understanding of Ralph Lauren as a brand within the market.
• Commercial and Analytical.
• Able to demonstrates logical analysis and problem-solving skills.
• Attention to detail.
• Able to work on own initiative and be pro-active.
• Able to organize, prioritise tasks and manages time well to meet deadlines
• Demonstrates good listening, written and oral communication skills, effectively and clearly communicates.
• Able to build and maintain productive relationships within team environment.
• Strong Microsoft application skills, particularly Excel.
• Show ability or aptitude in retail mathematics and able to learn technical applications quickly.
• Able to demonstrate resilience and remain positive during challenging period.
• Support with Sample Managing, Photo Shoots and Showroom set up (Wholesale focused).