We are currently looking for an Indirect Procurement Category Manager

A little about us:

With over a century of engineering expertise and innovation, KNDS UK is a renowned world leader in rapidly deployable military bridging systems and a key partner in the UK MoD’s Boxer armoured vehicle programme.

We are proud of our heritage and our reputation of providing the highest quality engineering solutions for over 100 years. As a trusted partner to military customers around the world, our employees are the very heart of our company. We have a skilled and experienced workforce dedicated to achieving excellence in all areas of the business from Engineering to Project Management, Business Support to Operations.

As our business evolves, we are looking to strengthen our workforce with talented and motivated individuals across a range of disciplines to work from our Northwest Engineering Centre of Excellence and currently have this opportunity available:

About the role:

The primary purpose of this role is to be responsible for identifying and executing strategic sourcing initiatives across the portfolio of all nonproduction related commodities at KNDS. This role ensures that all sourcing activities are fully aligned with the procurement strategies of the parent company, maintaining consistency and strategic coherence across all areas of responsibility.

Key duties include, but are not limited to:

• Owns the development and implementation of the category strategies across KNDS for the indirect procurement commodity group.  

• Developments and continually improves best in class, efficient and effective indirect procurement processes for both OPEX and CAPEX.

• Establishes the KNDS procurement and stakeholder networks necessary to support the development and execution of the strategies and plans.  

• Builds and maintains information on supply market and key suppliers. Provides market trends and cost analysis/modeling to internal stakeholders to improve long term cost position, drive best practices and ensure reliable on-time supply.  

• Is recognized as the ‘subject matter expert’ for the indirect procurement commodity group.

• Develops and executes a risk management plan that addresses key risks in contract management, supply, supplier management and procurement processes for the designated commodity group.  

• Leads key supplier relationships in conjunction with stakeholders to increase alignment and value generation between the supplier and KNDS. 

• Owns the development of long-term and short-term plans addressing the key areas of cost, safety, continuous improvement, supplier innovation and service.  

• Drives early engagement with the stakeholder community in the procurement process.

• Analysis of spend portfolio to drive opportunities and compliance; improves information management to increase integrity of spend analysis for nonproduction spend.   

• Manages key contracts and ensures compliance with the contract management process.

• Segmentation of the supply base based on risk likelihood and impact and the implementation of supplier performance management and continuous improvement process accordingly with appropriate KPIs and governance. 

• Leads procurement liaison to optimise delivery, inventory management and working capital.   

• Drives best in class contracting strategies across the commodity group.

• Provides leadership and direction for all procurement staff in the commodity group.

• Develops and implements enhanced efficiency in the procure to pay processes for the category.  

• Lead the development of an enhanced category management approach including implementation of KPIs and strategic sourcing processes for specified categories as well as those commodities managed at the site level. Facilitate improvement in category management results across the business.  

What we’re looking for:

Our ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate the following:

• Proven experience of working within Procurement the profession and experience working at category manager level.

• Previous experience of working within an indirect procurement.

• Proactive attitude, self-motivated with desire to get things done and act with a sense of urgency

• Ability to work quickly and accurately with exceptional attention to detail

• Ability to present complex data / information in group settings

• Confident negotiating purchasing strategy with strategic internal and external stakeholders 

• Commercially Aware - able to review and assess proposals and identify risk

• Flexible attitude, team worker and ability to work under own initiative 

• Ability to work at detailed level

• Excellent negotiation & communication skills - both written and verbal at all levels

• Ability to prioritise and organise work with minimal supervision

• Exceptional organisational skills and ability to work effectively under pressure

• Team worker and ability to work under own initiative 

• Good interpersonal skills ability to build strong supplier and internal relationships and influence stakeholders

• Able to work to deadlines and adapt to changing conditions

• Development of a collaborative approach to meet multiple and potentially conflicting requests

Why you should join us:

When you become part of the KNDS UK team, you will enjoy employee benefits such as:

• Competitive salary

• Attractive pension (4% employee contribution, 7% employer contribution)

• Half-day Friday

• Life assurance scheme

• Company sick pay scheme which increases with service

• Employee Assistance Programme

• Additional Holidays & other Long Service rewards

• Wellbeing initiatives, such as Free Fruit on Tuesday’s

• Cycle to work Scheme

• Free on-site car parking

• On-site electric vehicle charging points

We’re also very proud to be part of the Armed Forces Covenant since 2018, achieving their Silver Award in 2020 and Gold Award in 2024. We actively support and encourage service leavers, reservists and cadets to join our team, recognising military skills and qualifications in our recruitment and selection process.

If you are passionate about Procurement and eager to contribute to a thriving workplace environment, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity.

We look forward to receiving your application!

Recruiters please note that we have a list of approved recruitment agency partners in place and we will contact agencies directly should we require support. Any unsolicited CV’s received via an agency will be accepted with thanks but without fee.