Procurement Category Leader

Job title: Procurement Category Leader

Location: UK Wide – We offer a range of hybrid and flexible working arrangements – please speak to your recruiter about the options for this particular role.

Salary: £52,000 dependent on skills and experience

What you’ll be doing:

• Contribute to the development and execution of sourcing strategies for assigned categories, ensuring alignment with business objectives and delivering cost-effective, sustainable solutions
• Collaborate across teams to optimise category strategies, share insights, and drive continuous improvement
• Build and maintain strong relationships with both suppliers, internal and external stakeholders to ensure procurement strategies meet operational and strategic needs
• Support the management of the procurement pipeline, ensuring visibility and compliance with established processes
• For roles with direct reports, lead and support your team members, ensuring they are equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to drive procurement excellence

Your skills and experiences:

Essential:

• Proven experience in negotiating pricing and contractual terms with suppliers to secure the best value for the business
• Ability to build and maintain close, trusted relationships with both internal and external stakeholders, fostering effective communication and teamwork
• Demonstrated ability to identify and implement new opportunities for process improvement, problem-solving, and collaboration—ideally within a procurement or similar environment
• In-depth knowledge and experience in managing categories, including risk and opportunity management, to deliver value and ensure effective sourcing strategies

Desirable:

• Previous experience in managing supplier categories, developing category strategies and driving performance improvements through effective category planning and sourcing
• Ideally, you will be working towards or already hold a Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) Level 5 qualification, or a similar professional qualification. Alternatively, a degree in a business-related field (e.g. Economics, Business, Finance) would be advantageous
• Experience in leading or managing a team, providing direction, support, and development to ensure high performance and successful delivery of procurement goals

Benefits:

As well as a competitive pension scheme, BAE Systems also offers employee share plans, an extensive range of flexible discounted health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits, including a green car scheme, private health plans and shopping discounts – you may also be eligible for an annual incentive.

The Procurement Team:

We are looking for highly skilled and results-driven Category Leaders to join our Indirect Procurement Services team. This is an exciting opportunity for procurement professionals with experience to take on a key role in driving strategic sourcing, category management, and procurement excellence across a defined category. Reporting to a Procurement Manager, you will be responsible for executing procurement strategies and delivering impactful results. This is an exciting opportunity that will allow you to build on your procurement career whilst working alongside various stakeholders and partners across BAE Systems on a global scale.

Why BAE Systems?

This is a place where you’ll be able to make a real difference. You’ll be part of an inclusive culture that values diversity, rewards integrity, and merit, and where you’ll be empowered to fulfil your potential. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and particularly from sections of the community who are currently underrepresented within our industry, including women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ individuals. We also want to make sure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. If you have a disability or health condition (for example dyslexia, autism, an anxiety disorder etc.) that may affect your performance in certain assessment types, please speak to your recruiter about potential reasonable adjustments.

Please be aware that many roles at BAE Systems are subject to both security and export control restrictions. These restrictions mean that factors such as your nationality, any nationalities you may have previously held, and your place of birth can restrict the roles you are eligible to perform within the organisation. All applicants must as a minimum achieve Baseline Personnel Security Standard. Many roles also require higher levels of National Security Vetting where applicants must typically have 5 to 10 years of continuous residency in the UK depending on the vetting level required for the role, to allow for meaningful security vetting checks.

Closing Date: 24th June 2025 

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

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