Organisation: Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) 

Work Location: Barnsdale Way, Enderby, Leicester, LE19 1ES 

Salary: £41,208- £45,054 per annum (pro-rata for part time)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week. 

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 10th May 2024

Interview Dates: w/c 13th May 2024

1 Category manager post available for the Catalogue Procurement team 

Are you looking for a rewarding career where you can make a difference in public sector procurement? If so, ESPO are seeking to appoint a category manager to work in a team that delivers procurement solutions to support ESPO’s catalogue product offering.

About Us

For more than 30 years, ESPO has been one of the UK's largest public sector buying organisations working with a wide variety of suppliers to deliver savings and efficiencies to our customers.   

With the value of our procurement exceeding £1 billion per annum, our 350 staff are committed to helping public sector customers across the UK - in education, local government, charities and emergency services - to deliver best value.   

About the Role

Working alongside the Procurement Service Manager, the category manager will take responsibility for a small team of buyers who manage a programme of category related procurement activities. These procurement activities support ESPO’s catalogue offering and the successful candidate will be responsible for end-to-end procurement processes, management of suppliers and will work closely with ESPO’s product managers.

About You

To apply for this post, you must have:

• A degree or equivalent demonstrable experiences
• Extensive experience in purchasing, procurement and supply procedures and processes, including sourcing, tendering and evaluation techniques 
• Proven track record of managing a varied workload, completing procurement projects on time and delivering high performance
• Ability to apply the UK procurement regulations to a range of markets and commercial situations.
• Have strong negotiating and influencing skills across a range of stakeholders including internal customers, suppliers and collaborative working partners 
• Be a Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (or committed to working towards)

We’d also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the interview process.

What we offer:

• Flexible working opportunities and access to employee benefits portal 
• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays (increasing to 33 after 5 years’ service), and a scheme to buy additional leave.
• Local Government Pension Scheme with a generous employer contribution
• Great office location next to Fosse Park, with free on-site parking and easy access to M1 and M69.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual’s personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of ESPO. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc. 

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Kapil Rajput, Procurement Service Manager 

Email: k.rajput@espo.org 

How to Apply

ESPO is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity, and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our customers. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the customers we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click ‘Apply Now’. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the ‘About You’ section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

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.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Employee Service Centre: https://emss.freshdesk.com/support/home.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About ESPO

We're a unique organisation, owned by the public sector and sharing their values and ethos, but operating with a commercial edge. As a specialist procurement body, we pride ourselves on establishing procurement solutions that save money for the public sector. View our prospectus to find out more.

We have modern, open-plan offices with excellent transport links and a friendly workplace environment. We offer flexible working, a generous holiday entitlement, a contributory pension scheme, training (including professional CIPS qualification) and opportunities to develop your career.

ESPO is supported by wide range of roles across many different disciplines including sales, marketing, procurement, finance, operations (warehouse management and transport planning) and customer services. So whether you are interested in a public-facing role or playing your part behind the scenes, ESPO could be the place for you.

To learn more about working for ESPO please visit www.espo.org.