A MAJOR supermarket is offering a starting salary of £50,000 a year to some of its workers.
Pay could then climb as high as £90,000 in just a few years.
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That’s the amount that Aldi is offering area managers, and it’s just opened applications for 100 of these roles.
The job involves running several of Aldi’s 1,000 stores – but you’ll get training for a year first before you pick up the keys.
While the area manager programme is open to graduates, the scheme also welcomes those looking to change careers too.
You’ll need previous experience of being a manager and a degree, but this can be in any area.
You’ll get a mentor to help you through the training, but will start off in the early weeks stacking shelves, learning about the products and understanding customer service.
Around half way through the year you’ll be handed responsibility for running a store.
That involves key responsibilities like planning the rota, ordering thousands of products and managing the stores team.
Further training involves areas such as health and safety and human resources as well as accounts and business admin.
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Towards the end of the year, you’ll then learn more about the responsibility of being an area manager – and should be ready to take on your own stores.
As well as the high paying salary, you’ll get other benefits like a company car and you could even go and spend some time working abroad in the US or Australia where Aldi has stores too.
Kelly Stokes, recruitment director at Aldi, said: “We’re on the hunt for bright, driven and hardworking individuals to join the Aldi team as part of the area manager programme.
“Those joining the scheme can learn the ins and outs of the supermarket sector through in-depth training and support – and where better to learn than at the fastest-growing supermarket in the country?”
You can apply via the Aldi Recruitment website. It involves an online and video application, and online test, then an individual assessment and final interview.
Aldi isn’t the only supermarket where you can earn a high salary to start with, that also rises fast.
PAY DAY
Rival supermarket Lidl is offering between £48,000 and £52,000 to trainee area managers in Basingstoke for example.
Area managers who have been in the job longer can earn between £60,000 and £82,000.
Even store managers at Lidl can earn between £45,000 and £60,000 a year full-time.
That compares to the average salary which is £640 a week, or around £33,280 a year.
Meanwhile at Tesco, which doesn’t include salary information in its job adverts, pay ranges from £44,000 to £90,000 according to data from Glassdoor, a website which monitors salaries.
At Sainsbury’s, that’s between £31,009 and £60,000.
Meanwhile at Aldi, for those without a degree there are are opportunities for apprenticeships.
The supermarket is hiring for 500 of these roles in stores and another 100 in its logistics business.
Career starter apprentices need no formal qualifications and store management apprentices will need only GCSE maths and English grade 4-9, which is at least a C.
They can earn and can earn £7.74 and hour, or £232.20 per week, in the first year.
That then rises to £9.48 an hour (£284.40 a week) in the second year and £11.13 per hour (£333.90 a week) in the third.
Apprentices learn on the job and can often work their way up.
We spoke to Ben Newton who left school at 18 to go straight into one after turning down a University place – now he’s on £1million a year.
Some of the best paid apprenticeships offer £38,000 a year and you get paid to train – we’ve rounded them all up here.
Aldi is also one of the highest paying supermarkets in the UK for entry level store staff, offering £11.40 an hour along with Lidl.
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