Kitchen Sales Designer
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
Join Howdens where our trade depots are recruiting Kitchen Sales Designers who thrive in a fast-paced sales environment. We’re looking for commercially minded individuals who can build strong relationships, influence buying decisions and exceed sales targets.
We can offer you a successful career as a Kitchen Sales Designer, and you don’t need previous design experience. We’ll provide you with comprehensive design and sales training to create exceptional kitchens for our trade customers and their clients.
What we can offer you:
- Competitive salary, brilliant bonuses and outstanding depot incentives
- Full CAD, product and sales training via our Ready to Trade Programme
- Competitive Pension Plan up to 12% company contribution
- Up to 32 days annual leave per year including bank holidays, rising with service
- Generous staff discount on Howdens products
- Buy-as-you-earn share scheme
- 40 hour working week working every other Saturday morning.
- No Sunday or Bank Holiday working
- Career progression opportunities into sales management roles
- Virtual GP access and wellbeing support for you and your family
What we are looking for:
- Results driven with experience of reaching sales targets and KPI
- Ability to build trusted relationships with our trade customers and their client
- Excellent communication skills, able to convey your ideas clearly and effectively
- Full UK Driving license with access to your own vehicle for home visits
- Strong attention to detail and an eye for design
- CAD skills are preferred, but not essential as you will receive training
What you will be doing:
- Driving sales performance and profit by achieving your depot targets
- Building strong customer relationships through professional design support
- Delivering exceptional customer service throughout the project
- Conducting home visits to measure, assess and understand your client’s needs
- Negotiating prices confidently while protecting margin and design integrity
- Planning and creating inspirational and practical designs utilising your strong product knowledge to advise customers and resolve queries throughout the process
About Us:
Howdens Joinery is the UK’s number one trade kitchen supplier providing thousands of products across kitchens, joinery, and hardware. We have over 950 depots throughout the UK and Europe, making us the first choice for more than 460,000 loyal trade professionals. With an ambitious and credible growth plan, we continue to build on our £2.4 billion turnover.
How to apply:
If Howdens sounds like the kind of place where you can build and develop your career as a Kitchen Sales Designer, then we are keen to hear from you.
Howdens is founded on the principle of being Worthwhile for ALL concerned. We’re working hard to ensure we provide an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome. We will do everything we can to support you during your application. If you need us to make any adjustments to our recruitment process, please email with the job title and location, and we will be happy to help you.
#LI-LO1 #CVL INDKSD #Reed
Key skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Lead your CV personal statement with a clear sales achievement — the advert opens with 'exceed sales targets', so quantify a target you hit or exceeded (e.g. '118% of quarterly sales target across 3 consecutive periods').
📊 Quantify your sales results throughout your CV: 'Grew account revenue by 22% over 12 months, managing a portfolio of 40 trade customers' shows the commercial mindset Howdens explicitly seeks.
🎯 Mention any CAD or kitchen/bathroom design software you have used (e.g. Winner, Fusion, ArtiCAD) even if basic — the advert flags CAD as preferred, so any exposure differentiates you from candidates with none.
🚗 Confirm your full UK driving licence and vehicle access explicitly in your CV profile or a dedicated 'Additional Information' section, as home visits are a core duty and the licence is a stated requirement.
🤝 Include a bullet under each relevant role referencing trade or contractor relationship management — Howdens serves 460,000 trade professionals, so demonstrating experience with builders, contractors or similar trade clients is directly relevant.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Exceeded quarterly sales targets by 23% across 3 consecutive periods, managing a portfolio of 35 active trade accounts and conducting 8-10 home visits per week.
- •Produced end-to-end kitchen designs using CAD software for 120+ projects annually, reducing client revision requests by 30% through precise on-site measurement and detailed briefing.
- •Negotiated bespoke pricing agreements with 15 repeat trade contractors, protecting an average gross margin of 38% while growing account revenue by £85,000 year-on-year.
Free to copy — tailoring requires a 30-sec CV upload.
Your cover letter is ready
We've drafted a cover letter for Howdens Joinery. Preview the opening, then unlock the full personalised version.
Letter preview — tailored to Howdens Joinery
Dear Hiring Manager,
Howdens Joinery's reputation as the UK's number one trade kitchen supplier — serving over 460,000 trade professionals — is precisely why the Kitchen Sales Designer role at your Rotherham depot appeals to me. With a proven record of hitting sales targets and building trusted relationships with trade customers, I am confident I can drive depot performance while delivering the design quality your clients expect.
My background in trade sales and customer-facing design support has equipped me with the negotiation skills and commercial awareness this role demands. I have consistently achieved KPI targets in previous positions, managed home visit pipelines across multiple concurrent projects, and developed the attention to detail needed to produce accurate, practical designs. I am eager to build on this foundation through Howdens' Ready to Trade Programme and your structured CAD training.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk us through how you would use CAD software to produce a kitchen design from a home visit measurement to a finished plan.
- ›How do you calculate margin when negotiating a discount with a trade customer on a large kitchen order?
- ›Describe the process you would follow when conducting a home visit to measure and assess a client's kitchen space.
- ›How would you use Howdens' product range to resolve a design conflict between a client's wish list and their available budget?
- ›What steps would you take to keep a kitchen project on track from initial design through to final order, ensuring accuracy at every stage?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you exceeded a sales target — what actions did you take and what was the outcome?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to manage a difficult trade customer relationship and how you resolved it.
- ›Give an example of when you had to negotiate confidently on price while protecting profitability — what was your approach?
- ›Tell me about a time you had to juggle multiple customer projects simultaneously — how did you prioritise and what was the result?
- ›Describe a moment when your attention to detail prevented a costly error in a sales or design project.
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you exceeded a sales target — what actions did you take and what was the outcome?
Describe a situation where you had to manage a difficult trade customer relationship and how you resolved it.