Do you know about the various Diageo graduate programmes?

October 18, 2022

Starting a career in any of Diageo's graduate schemes provides immense opportunities to collaborate with people across business areas and regions.

In an inclusive culture, you'll get celebrated for your ideas and achievements, empowering you to be you. You'll also enjoy an attractive benefit and rewards package.

Let's learn about Diageo's difference graduate programme options.

Commercial Sales Graduate Programme, Great Britain

Diageo's Great Britain Commercial Sales Graduate Programme has diverse opportunities across Great Britain. The three-year programme has an exciting workplace learning approach that means graduates will spend their days right at the heart of an enormous global organisation.

Start a Commercial Sales career with some of the most iconic brands in the world. Taking iconic, timeless brands like Baileys, Guinness and Smirnoff and finding them new generations of shoppers, new untapped markets, new reasons to be purchased, and new places to be sold. Graduates will be immersed in the sales process from the beginning, spending time building relationships with Diageo partners and working with customers to improve sales. They will be responsible for ensuring Diageo's brands are successfully promoted, readily available and well presented to anyone who wants to buy them.

Over the three-year rotational programme, graduates have an opportunity to excel in areas across Diageo's Commercial Sales teams, such as Account Management, Customer Marketing, Shopper and Customer Activation, Innovation and Reserve. They'll discover everything they need to know about the company's brands, its competitors, the market and customers. Graduates will help shape the future of Diageo's brands and business by driving growth, all whilst building a global network of relationships that will support their career, both now and long into the future.

Marketing Graduate Programme, Great Britain

Diageo's marketing teams play a big role in ensuring its brands live and breathe their purpose and the company remains at the heart of celebrations everywhere. 

Diageo's Marketing Graduate Programme in Great Britain is a three-year rotational programme where graduates help create compelling and powerful stories to make the company's existing brands even stronger, and perhaps even launching new ones. Developing creative platforms that will be activated all over the world, they'll use their creativity, vision and pioneering spirit to bring Diageo's brands to life. 

 On this three-year rotational programme, graduates get to experience different roles with a focus on supporting the growth of both the company's global and local products. They could have an opportunity to excel in areas such as Brand Marketing, Culture, Media & Digital, Customer Activation and Shopper Planning & Activation. Through working on iconic and innovative brands graduates will be inspired to excel and build the foundations of their Marketing and Commercial Capability. These foundations will help graduates to advance at an accelerated pace, where they'll be ready to specialise in an area of Marketing within Diageo after the programme.

Throughout the programme, they'll have a combination of formal training with a leadership curriculum, mentoring and coaching from respected colleagues and, most importantly, real world, on-the-job experience. From the beginning graduates will be working on projects that will develop and improve their skill set.

Human Resources Graduate Programme, Europe

Diageo's two-year Human Resources (HR) Graduate Programme has opportunities across London, Ireland, Northern Europe and other European locations.

With more than 28,000 talented people working across the globe for Diageo, its people remain the company's asset. Diageo's role in HR is to build an environment that encourages its employees to drive the business forward; ensuring an environment of engaged people, through the creation of high performing teams, the most inclusive culture and a continuous learning mindset. Because Diageo is an extraordinary company, it goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the potential it sees in its people is realised.

During the programme, graduates gain broad experience within HR across their two rotations in key parts of Diageo's HR operating model. One rotation will be in a generalist HR field, in a team that partners one of its core business units or Markets. The other rotation will give graduates the chance to develop expertise in specialist HR centres of excellence such as Learning and Development, Performance and Reward, Talent Strategy, Organisation Effectiveness and Business Partnering.

Finance Graduate Programme, Europe

Diageo's Finance Graduate Programme has a variety of opportunities across European locations. This three-year programme has an exciting workplace learning approach that means future employees will spend your days right at the heart of an enormous global organisation.

Diageo's aim is to help build the strongest finance talent possible, where its graduates and future leaders of the finance organization, it is important to have exposure to a broad range of finance disciplines. The company believes that building capability in both corporate and commercial finance capabilities will set a solid base from which a great career can be built upon. Graduates could find themselves in rotations where they are involved in preparing and maintaining accounts; statutory and regulatory reporting; planning, budgeting, and forecasting; risk management and business assurance; project and activity appraisal or working capital and project management.

Finance depends on quality information. Having it at the right time, using it in the right way, and harnessing it to help Diageo's business to grow and evolve. Graduates will earn how to see the story behind the figures, what they say about the company's current performance and what might be over the horizon. Graduates astute analysis and appreciation for risk verses rewards will guide others’ thinking and drive Diageo's strategies.

Over the course of the three-year programme, graduates will be supported through CIMA, a professional Finance Qualification that is globally recognised and funded by Diageo through a flexible learning curriculum. They will have the opportunity to experience up to three different rotations within Finance, with the rotations being in exciting locations across Europe.

Engineering & Technical Graduate Programme, Europe

Diageo's Engineering & Technical Graduate Programme is a three-year rotational programme that has an exciting workplace learning approach and exciting opportunities across Europe.

Diageo is looking for graduates from a variety of science, technology and engineering backgrounds with a specific interest in the engineering and/or technical teams within its supply chain and procurement business. During the three-year rotational programme, graduates will gain a broad overview of the wider supply chain and procurement business, whilst developing their technical skills and advanced leadership capabilities. Their learning path will depend on their academic background and business requirements.

Some typical rotations include:

Technical – in Diageo's Technical teams graduates will work with specialists in brand change, science and technology, safety, quality, environmental sustainability, and governance to ensure they innovate and grow while protecting the company's people, brands, and the environment
Engineering – graduates will have the opportunity to work at the heart of an enormous global manufacturing operation where they will get the chance to work on industry leading technology and, of course, help Diageo shape the future. As an Engineer in the company's talented team, graduates could be working on anything from managing global capex projects to ensuring the delivery of efficient and effective maintenance and repair, problem solving and improvement of assets and their availability across Diageo's international sites
Supply Chain & Procurement – graduates also have the opportunity to rotate across the broader supply chain and procurement business, in areas such as Planning and Logistics, Manufacturing, Procurement and Sustainability

Supply Chain & Procurement Graduate Programme, Europe

Diageo's Supply Chain & Procurement Graduate Programme is a three-year rotational programme with opportunities across Scotland, Ireland and other European locations. Graduates will gain a broad overview of the wider supply chain and procurement business, whilst developing their advanced leadership capabilities.

Graduates have an opportunity to gain experience in exciting specialisms such as Manufacturing, Procurement, Sustainability and Planning & Logistics. Their learning path will depend on their academic background and business requirements.

Some typical rotations include:

Planning and Logistics – in Planning and Logistics (P&L) graduates will drive what products and materials exist across Diageo's supply chain to meet customer needs. With its Logistics team leading the warehousing, transport, and delivery of the company's products from the manufacturing site to the company's customers
Manufacturing – here graduates will be responsible for ensuring Diageo's products are made to the highest standards and in the most efficient way
Procurement – graduates will have the opportunity to build and protect Diageo's reputation across its supply base, ensuring it has services, partnerships and products that meet its needs today and tomorrow
Sustainability – graduates will work with Diageo's whole value chain, the people, resources and environment that contribute to the company's success, from grain to glass

Digital & Technology Graduate Programme, Europe

The Digital & Technology (D&T) function plays a pivotal role in supporting Diageo’s long-term vision by maximising data and digital technology to transform its business and put Diageo one step ahead of the competition, whether that be working directly with its markets to implement new systems and capabilities or working with its Analytics and Insights team to help predict future industry trends.

Over the three-year Digital & Technology Graduate Programme rotational programme, graduates have an opportunity to gain experience in exciting specialisms within D&T whilst developing their leadership skills, and opportunities across London and Budapest locations. They also have an opportunity to experience various aspects of the end-to-end Digital and Technology function, striving to develop their functional capability.

Graduates could be working in:

Strategic planning – either as a strategic Business Partner, or as a systems guru, they'll be working with leaders across its business to craft our technology roadmaps of the future, think big and think ahead. This is the forward-looking team that will keep Diageo ahead of the competition
Technology Transformation – supporting the implementation of world-leading technology solutions across Diageo, from the implementation of cutting-edge capabilities that drive point of sale across outlets, to the simplification and automatization of its technology infrastructure
Project & Change Management – creating and delivering a portfolio of strategic projects that support the D&T transformation agenda. Working within an extended agile team, graduates will have experience and exposure to industry best practice in project management and change readiness
Cyber Security – protecting Diageo’s intellectual property from external hackers, either by developing internal capability and cyber resilience, or supporting crisis management during an attack
Employee Experience – working on the front line on new systems and technology deployment on-site to ensure a seamless employee experience
Data Science / Visualization – graduates will understand the function you partner, translating their everyday experience into a business problem, a testable hypothesis and in the end, a solution. With quantitative analysis, data mining and visualization they will be the one providing the insights that move Diageo's business forward
Data Engineering – the backbone of Diageo's analytics products is the clean, optimized data that the company's product managers and project teams use to build tools and solutions for its business problems. Designing, building, and maintaining data processing systems makes sure the company uses data in an efficient way, and graduates will be successful if they're comfortable around code, databases and design. Diageo can only build high if the base is strong

By the end of the programme, graduates will be able to follow various different career paths throughout the function, and Diageo will support them to find the best opportunity that is suited to them.