Category Manager

Basingstoke, Hampshire
Sovereign Housing Association Limited

Have you got procurement Category Management expertise from within property services?

We’ve got a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Category Manager to join our busy Procurement team. Based from our offices in Basingstoke or Wembley, you’ll combine home and office working to ensure a positive work / life balance. There may be some occasional travel to other offices as required.

At SNG (Sovereign Network Group), we provide over 85,000 homes and invest in communities across London, the South East, South West and East of England, as well as aiming to create thousands of new affordable homes every year.

The Role

As a Category Manager, you will play a pivotal role leading and delivering on a number of key sourcing projects, working collaboratively with project teams and range of stakeholders across the business. You’ll ensure that procurement support is aligned to the objectives and culture at SNG, enabling the fulfilment of our corporate plan ambitions.

Experience from within property services or housing asset management is preferred, to focus on current and future projects across our property services teams. Responsibilities include:

• Overseeing your categories and analysing trends in spend, supplier engagement, and contracts to develop strategic procurement solutions to deliver efficiencies and benefits to the business
• Delivering a portfolio of sourcing projects from end-to-end, ensuring the business receives value for money, meets project timelines and delivers to a high standard
• Leading supplier engagement and sourcing activity from definition of requirements and sourcing, through to tender and life cycle management
• Building strong relationships with internal stakeholders to understand business plans and objectives as well as any challenges, opportunities and identifying any risks
• Undertaking market research, on suppliers, markets including framework opportunities to support active procurement projects
• Ensuring all expenditure is identified with routes to market being clearly defined
• Identifying areas where procurement can add measurable value in terms of sourcing exercises, onward effective supplier management and strategic procurement

What we’re looking for

You’ll need to have demonstrable experience within a similar role in procurement, ideally with a background in procurement activities relating to property services or housing asset management. You’ll also need:

• Strategic procurement category management expertise, evidencing the use of data and analysis to drive decision making
• Strong experience in leading on end-to-end procurement projects, including tenders
• Experience in supplier relationship management, ensuring value for money deals with suppliers who are committed to delivering a high service to SNG, and managing the commercial performance of procurement contracts
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with proven ability to engage and influence others to deliver the best outcomesUnderstanding of the principles of procurement with the ability to transfer and apply this understanding to different projects across multiple categories
• To be well organised with a high attention to detail
• An agile approach with the ability to work successfully on multiple projects at different stages, effectively prioritising tasks
• To be self motivated and an active collaborator, sharing ideas and working cohesively with the wider team
• An understanding of the Procurement Act 2023 and PCR 2015 is relevant and beneficial to this role

Benefits

We have some great benefits at SNG, including:

• 25 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays (with an extra day every year up to 30 days)
• Chance to buy or sell holiday as part of our flexible benefits package
• 3 additional wellbeing days and 2 paid volunteering days
• Generous matched pension scheme up to 12% and Life cover at 4x salary
• Options for private medical insurance, dental insurance and critical illness cover
• Wellbeing discounts, including Gym Memberships and access to a 24/7 virtual GP service

At Sovereign Network Group, we are passionate about inclusion for all and creating a workplace where everyone can thrive. We are committed to our Equality Diversity and Inclusion strategy and believe that you can truly be yourself at SNG. Take a look at our careers site to learn more about us and our values.

If you would like the opportunity to make a real impact within our changing and growing organisation, we would love to hear from you!