Category Manager

We have a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Category Manager to join our busy Procurement team on a fixed term basis for up to 12 months. Based from our head office in Basingstoke, you will combine home and office working to ensure a positive work/life balance. It is an exciting time to join us as Sovereign have joined forces with Network Homes to form SNG (Sovereign Network Group). Together we provide over 84,000 homes and invest in communities across London and the South of England – our purpose being to provide quality affordable homes and places that people love for generations.

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 a range of stakeholders across the business. You will ensure that procurement support is aligned to the objectives and culture at SNG, enabling the fulfilment of our Corporate plan ambitions.

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 and 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, effective supplier management, and strategic procurement.

What We’re Looking For:

You will need to have demonstrable experience within a similar role in procurement, ideally with a background in either Development, Property Services, or Facilities Management procurement activity, although this isn’t essential. You will also need:

• Strong experience in supplier relationship management, ensuring you seek value for money deals with suppliers who are committed to delivering a high service to SNG.
• Extensive experience of managing the commercial performance of procurement contracts.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with a proven ability to engage and influence others to deliver the best outcomes.
• Understanding 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 or exposure to PCR projects is beneficial to this role but is not essential.

Your Benefits:

We have some great benefits on offer at SNG, including:

• £450 flex-pot annually, discounted shopping & cycling scheme.
• 25 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays (with an extra day every year up to 30 days).
• Company pension scheme matched up to 12%, life cover at 4x your salary.
• Flexible working - we’re committed to giving people flexibility as widely as possible.
• Options for private medical insurance, dental insurance & critical illness cover.

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. This is a great opportunity to join the team as we progress through an exciting period of change. What we do makes a real difference to people’s lives, and by joining us, you can share the satisfaction of doing something that really matters.