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Building the hotel of the future

Data, Digital & Technology Graduate Programme 2025

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The next step of our journey… needs you

The future of hospitality is here, and we want you to help shape it. Introducing our first-ever Data, Digital, and Technology Graduate Programme: a unique opportunity to rotate through four dynamic departments in the digital ecosystem that powers the UK’s leading hotel brand, Premier Inn.

Joe Garrood, our Chief Commercial Officer, outlines our guest obsession that’s raised the bar in hospitality and the journey from bookings to bed that our innovations are driving. The successful foundations are in place - now we need you to take it even further.

Investing in your development

Our Digital, Data & Technology Graduate Scheme offers you the chance to gain broad hands-on experience with a variety of areas of our famous hotel brand, Premier Inn. You’ll be joining us at an exciting time as we invest significantly into our technology platforms and continue to evolve our digital and data capabilities for the future.

During this 2-year program you’ll be in a business critical role from day one. You will undertake a minimum of 4 rotations where you will have the opportunity to work on a variety of exciting projects and solve real world challenges, enabling you to gain a breadth of experience and a deep understanding of our business.

Alongside your practical work, we’ll support your personal growth with mentoring, peer support, and professional development and training. Once you have successfully completed the scheme, you can expect to progress into a permanent role where you can continue to develop your skills and experience towards becoming a future senior leader within our business.

Innovation is what we do

We're guest obsessed at Premier Inn and we're always looking for how we can improve and make our hotels even better. Through collaboration, passion and hiring the smartest minds, our Technology team builds products and services that are used by thousands of colleagues and millions of customers every year. Together we're building the hotel of the future with projects like this…

Premier Inn Your Pockets

Millions of downloads have helped our guests get even more from Premier Inn through our popular app - but what's next? With Premier Inn Your Pockets, customers are able to manage their bookings on the go, add their reservation into their phone wallets & access kiosk QR codes - so guests can further rest easy.

Issue

We're working on marketing the app for the first time and introducing new app-only features to support a guest's stay and progress Premier Inn in becoming a leader in mobile technology.

Insight

Over 2024 we've worked with our customers to understand what they want from the Premier Inn App and on iOS you're able to switch between MyPI and Business Booker easily!

Idea

Check-In Online will be arriving in January 2025 which will be the start of our direct to room journey, putting the app as a guest companion across their Premier Inn experience.

Impact

Working with our customers this was their top ask was to be able to complete Check-In Online prior to their stay and our future features will continue to refined with them, this includes Germany where the app needs to serve their needs too!

Linen AI: Weaving Innovation into Operations

The bed – that’s what we’re most famous for at Premier Inn, right? When guests stay with us they can rest easy knowing a peaceful night’s sleep awaits them. The bed is the star, but what goes into the bed uses the very latest real-time tech that’s making life easier for our hotel teams.

Issue

The previous hotel-governed linen ordering process was inefficient, labour-intensive, and prone to inaccuracies, leading to higher costs, wasted effort, and logistical challenges for both hotel teams and suppliers.

Insight

Accurately predicting linen demand using machine learning could revolutionise the ordering process, enabling smarter decisions that align with guest demand, reducing manual input, improving efficiency, and fostering collaboration with suppliers.

Idea

Design and implement an end-to-end centralised linen ordering system powered by advanced machine learning algorithms. Developed collaboratively by the Data Science team alongside IT, Operations, and Linen Suppliers, the system predicts guest demand, automates orders, and introduces transparent processes through new applications and a reporting suite shared across teams.

Impact

Whitbread developed an advanced, end-to-end machine learning-powered linen ordering system that centralised operations, reduced costs, improved supply chain logistics, and enhanced communication, enabling housekeeping teams to focus on delivering exceptional guest service.

Business Booker gets bigger and better

We have a suite of online business tools designed to help our business customers save time and money. Used by over 145,000 companies, Business Booker is our free online booking tool available to businesses of all sizes. It provides access to a guaranteed 5% to 15% discount off our Flex rate and it's getting even better…

Issue

The Business Booker tool is core to acquiring and retaining frequent business customers. We need to ensure we are continually enhancing the tool to meet evolving customer needs.

Insight

Using a variety of customer research techniques, we continuously gather feedback to understand the challenges our existing customers face and the barriers prospective customers encounter when signing up.

Idea

By integrating additional features into the Business Booker tool, including access to our payment card—Business Account—we aim to create a central “one-stop shop” for all companies, further opening the potential for additional integrations.

Impact

This evolved tool will allow us to develop at a much quicker pace, enabling us to attract a broader audience while continuously providing added value to our existing customers.

Behind the scenes of Premier Inn

Solution Architecture

Designing new processes, implementing new ways of working and a focus on embedding technology systems used by millions of customers and thousands of employees.

Digital Marketing

Innovative strategies and data-driven insights to enhance brand visibility, drive bookings and optimise customer engagement across various digital platforms

Delivery

Honing skills on project management and collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders

Decision Science

Leverage data analytics and predictive modelling to drive strategic decisions, enhance guest experiences and optimise operational efficiencies.

Commercial Revenue Management

Analysing market trends and data to optimise pricing strategies, maximise occupancy rates and drive revenue growth.

Tech Operations

Supporting the introduction of new services, monitoring current platforms and reacting to live problems

Information Security

A growth area in all organisations, projects and daily life to think about how secure our systems are for customers and develop in threat intelligence.

App and Website

Develop new features and help build out product roadmaps with innovations for customer and commercial benefits.

Solution Architecture

Thomas Holmes, Solution Architecture

"Joining Whitbread on the graduate scheme eight years ago was the start of an incredible journey. Since then, I’ve progressed through roles as a Solution Designer Solution Architect, and now Domain Architect. Each step has deepened my expertise in technology and business, allowing me to design and deliver impactful solutions that benefit both the company and our customers.

"The graduate scheme stood out for its exceptional support network within the technology function, opportunities to explore diverse roles, and the camaraderie of learning alongside a talented cohort. Highlights for me have been small rotations in Project Management, Security, and Service Operations, which broadened my understanding of key functions. However, my primary focus was Solution Architecture, where I led designs for projects that brought tangible value to the business.

"Whitbread’s supportive culture and development opportunities have been instrumental in my growth. Along the way, I earned key qualifications, including ITIL Foundation, TOGAF, and Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, equipping me with robust frameworks and skills to excel in architecture roles."

Digital Marketing

Rebecca Cressey, Digital Marketing Acquisition

“I'm part of the Digital Acquisition marketing team, responsible for driving Premier Inn's online visibility and performance across a range of digital marketing channels including Paid Social, Display, Paid Search on Google and Bing, Affiliates and Meta Search engines like Trivago and TripAdvisor.

"My role focuses on managing and reporting on our Paid Social, Display and Affiliate channels, to ensure they're optimised to drive customers to our website. On a day-to-day basis I work closely with both internal stakeholders such as our Brand and Trading teams to align on creative and messaging, as well as external like as our media agency and partners including Facebook and TikTok so we have the best setup possible.”

Delivery

Matthew Lee, Change Delivery Manager

"As a Change Delivery Manager I work collaborately with a wider range of stakeholders and suppliers to deliver business outcomes and needs, by implementing changes or improvements to a solution, product, or service. This could involve introducing new solution or new features, addressing issues, or optimising existing processes."

Decision Science

Abinayan Parthiban, Data Science Manager

“Nestled within the Decision Science Department in the Commercial and Marketing function, the Data Science team focuses on solving problems. We do this by leveraging advanced analytics, machine learning models, and statistical techniques to derive actionable insights, optimise strategies, and drive data-informed decision-making across functions within Whitbread.”

Commercial Revenue Management

Landi Yang, E-Commerce Analyst

"In my role I conduct daily analysis of website performance, execute A/B testing to optimise user experience, and implement strategies to drive the achievement of marketing objectives.

"I think it's a really unique place to work. Here they don't judge you on your gender or your race - they value your willingness to learn and your willingness to grow. I think this is really important to what we have here."

Tech Operations

Den Fitzpatrick, Senior Service Delivery Manager

"The TechOps IT team plays a pivotal role in ensuring seamless service, operations, and infrastructure management for the organisation. Comprising skilled professionals, the team is responsible for maintaining and optimising IT systems, resolving technical issues and implementing robust service improvements to enhance efficiency and reliability.

"Within TechOps, I lead the Outlet-focussed service delivery teams, building strong relationships with our stakeholder community by maintaining proximity and building trust, thereby enabling our outlet colleagues to operate at peak performance and to continue to delight our guests."

Information Security

Lewis Friend - InfoSec - Digital Security

"Put simply we protect our Web and App presence to ensure our booking and reservation portals remain secure to maintain trust from our customers."

App and Website

Tasha Morrison, Ecommerce Product Manager - Apps

"I work on the Premier Inn App to enhance our guests' experience through every part of the customer journey, in particular introducing Check-In Online and promoting our food & beverage options during their stay. The team is also now introducing the self-service Kiosks as a digital product and continuing to iterate on PremierInn.com website as the best place to search and book for your stay!

"In my time here, I’ve had exposure to work that I know I wouldn’t have had elsewhere. But what makes me proud is when we come together to use our skills for projects that have real, tangible results. The most innovative thing we’ve done during my time wasn’t tied up with multi-million-pound products or projects. It was much closer to home.

"Utilising our current technology investment to solve problems such as rolling out a Track & Trace system across 400+ restaurants during the pandemic, saving Whitbread money from buying an ‘off the shelf’ product and exploiting existing technology at an uncertain time in a creative way, was a great achievement.

"There’s a lot of opportunity at Whitbread to be a part of real change if you’re eager to.

Life at Premier Inn

What can you expect from a career with the UK's leading hospitality brand? We asked our team your questions around their roles and how they impact our guests, as well as how they see the future for the UK's leading hotel brand.

Our application process

Here we believe there's no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We don't want anything to stand between you and your new career, so we've listed everything that you'll be expected to do between now and beginning your journey with us.

Step 1

Hit 'apply now' and submit your application on our careers site and upload your CV.

Step 2

You’ll be asked to complete our online testing which starts with two games-based assessments. These are quick and can be completed at a time when it's best for you. You can do this on your smartphone, computer or tablet.

Step 3

Next, you’ll be asked to complete a video interview. You'll answer a set of interview questions using your smartphone, computer or tablet to record yourself. These will be around a set of competencies and why you’d like to work for us. Also, don’t worry if you are unhappy with your first answer, you can re-record this if you’d like.

Step 4

If you're successful following the online assessment you’ll be invited to our in person assessment centre in February 2025 at our Support Centre in Dunstable.

Premier Perks

At Premier Inn, we believe in treating our people just like our guests - hence our premium perks.

Decent discounts

The Whitbread Privilege Card is exclusively for Whitbread employees, offering all of our people fantastic discounts across our great brands. The card can be used to enjoy a fantastic discount of 25% at our restaurants and up to 60% at our Premier Inn and hub hotels.

Perks at work

Perks at Work gives you access to thousands of discounts on your favourite brands. From high street retailers to utility companies, you can save on clothes, electrical goods, groceries, energy bills and so much more!

Long-term benefits

The Whitbread Sharesave scheme gives you the opportunity to share in our success. You can save money through your pay to buy Whitbread shares with a very generous discount, become a Whitbread shareholder, sell your shares to make a profit or take your savings back at any time.

Whitbread PLC
120 Holborn
London
EC1N 2TD

Getting there by bus
8 17 25 45 46 55 63 243 341 521 N8 N55

Nearby train stations
0.1 mile - Chancery Lane
0.3 mile - Farringdon
0.5 mile - St. Paul
0.5 mile - Holborn

Life in Holborn
This is our home. It's an inspiring space in a great location, with the atmosphere of a thriving start-up. We're well-connected and surrounded by just about everything you could ever need. Lunch is sorted, with the world-famous Leather Lane just up the road. And, whether you fancy going out or working out, we're surrounded by more bars and gyms than we can name. Not bad eh?

Whitbread Court
Houghton Hall
Business Park,
Porz Avenue,
Dunstable
LU5 5XE

Getting here by public transport
Take train to Luton then take the Bus Z to get off at Regis Road. Follow the road to the roundabout and you won't miss the Whitbread Court

Life in Dunstable
This is Whitbread's HQ. Not far from the large town of Luton and neighbouring Houghton Hall Park, you can go about your IT duties in a traditional, established space.

We're near the end of a big refurb of the office, making it a place we're proud to show off. There's a Coffee Bar for meeting and collaborating, with food available through the day. We’ll also be creating a dedicated space for up to 250 people for larger team get-togethers in an Auditorium facility. Our Reception area is welcoming and modern with Whitbread branding at the heart, and features a dedicated area showcasing our Whitbread heritage. There's Premier Inn branding on hero walls across our office spaces as we celebrate our most famous brand.