NWF Fuels spends in excess of £500 million a year on the fuel it sells, and a further circa £30 million on everything else the business buys to operate: fleet parts and maintenance, PPE, IT, professional services, insurance, facilities and capital equipment. That £30 million has never had a dedicated procurement function behind it, until now.
The Head of Procurement is a new position, created to build that function from scratch. There is no existing team, no established category strategy and no supplier governance to inherit; the first phase of this role is about designing and standing up a procurement discipline that doesn't currently exist, not optimising one that does.
The role also carries procurement oversight of the fuel supply chain function: the Supply Chain Manager and Supply Chain Coordinator, who buy fuel against the business's supply contracts and keep the right stock in the right depots. The Head of Procurement doesn't set fuel trading or hedging strategy, that sits with the Supply Chain and Procurement Director, but owns the commercial discipline, supplier governance and cost control underneath it.
This is a genuine build role for someone who wants to create something, not manage an inherited function. It reports to the Supply Chain and Procurement Director and sits alongside Operations, Finance and the wider commercial team as procurement's voice in the business.
Why NWF Fuels?
- Monthly Pay: Up to £85,000 per annum dependant on experience
- Bonus: Up too 25% performance based
- Shifts: Monday to Friday
- Holidays: 33 days per year including bank holidays
- Progression Opportunities: Clear progression pathways within Fuels and across the wider group that operates 2 other business’
- Training Opportunities: Funded, accredited courses.
- Medicash: Cashback on routine medical expenses such as dental, optical, physiotherapy and more!
- Shopping Discounts: Save with discounts at major retailers like Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Currys, Debenhams and more!
- Travel Savings: Discounts on flights, hotels, and airport parking.
- Entertainment Offers: Reduced prices at over 400 cinemas across the UK, including savings on drinks and snacks.
- Dining and Lifestyle: Access to deals on restaurants, leisure activities, and other lifestyle services.
- Enhanced Policies: Enhanced maternity and paternity leave.
- The Usual: Company Pension Scheme, Life Assurance, Cycle to Work Scheme, Employee Assistance Programme including counselling, legal and financial support, Free Refreshments, Free Secure On-Site Parking!
Day to Day
Building the procurement function
- Design and implement NWF Fuels' first formal procurement function, covering policy, category strategy, supplier governance and contract management.
- Establish approval thresholds, sourcing routes and a genuine category management approach for indirect spend, starting from an effectively blank sheet.
- Introduce a consistent supplier onboarding, due diligence and contract review process across all non-fuel categories.
- Select and implement the systems, purchase-to-pay, contract management, supplier data, needed to run procurement properly, working with IT and Finance.
Indirect and discretionary spend
- Own the circa £30 million of annual discretionary, non-fuel spend across categories including fleet parts and maintenance, PPE, IT, professional services, insurance, facilities and capital equipment.
- Build category strategies for the highest-value and highest-risk areas of spend, consolidating fragmented buying where it exists today.
- Run competitive tenders and negotiations for major contracts and renewals, delivering measurable savings against a credible baseline.
- Partner with budget holders across Operations, Fleet, IT and Finance so procurement is involved before a commitment is made, not after.
Fuel supply chain governance
- Provide procurement leadership to the Supply Chain Manager and Supply Chain Coordinator, setting the commercial standards they operate to when executing fuel purchase orders and managing haulage arrangements.
- Ensure fuel purchasing execution and primary distribution decisions, own fleet against third-party haulage, are made with proper commercial discipline and full visibility of cost.
- Work with the Supply Chain and Procurement Director on the interface between strategic fuel buying and hedging and the operational purchasing carried out by the supply chain team.
- Review supplier and haulier contracts supporting the fuel supply chain for value and performance, alongside the Supply Chain Manager.
Savings, budget and reporting
- Set a credible savings target for the function and report performance against it, using a defensible methodology, not just negotiated-price claims.
- Manage the procurement function's own budget and resourcing.
- Report procurement performance, savings delivered and category risk to the Supply Chain and Procurement Director on a regular cycle.
- Build the reporting and data foundation, spend visibility, supplier performance, contract coverage, needed to run procurement as a genuine discipline rather than a series of one-off deals.
Team leadership
- Lead, coach and develop the Supply Chain Manager and Supply Chain Coordinator.
- Build the case for further procurement headcount or capability as the function matures, backed by evidence of what's being missed today.
- Create a culture where procurement is seen as a commercial partner to the business, not a blocker or a rubber stamp.
Cross-functional collaboration
- Work closely with Finance on budget setting, savings validation and contract-related financial risk.
- Work with Operations and Fleet on specification, supplier performance and the practical realities of what's being procured.
- Support the Supply Chain and Procurement Director on M&A-related procurement due diligence and integration where required.
What will you bring?
- Demonstrable experience building or substantially establishing a procurement function from a standing start, not just running an existing one.
- Strong category management experience across indirect and non-fuel spend: fleet, PPE, professional services, IT, facilities or similar.
- Experience negotiating and managing supplier contracts of significant value, with a track record of delivering measurable savings.
- Background in fuel distribution, energy, logistics or a similarly complex operational business is a strong advantage; experience at a business such as Certas Energy, Watson Fuels or a comparable national fuel or energy distributor is directly relevant.
- Experience providing procurement governance over a purchasing or supply chain team without directly owning their day-to-day operational decisions.
- Strong category management and sourcing capability, able to build a strategy for a category from nothing.
- Confident negotiator, comfortable taking on established suppliers and incumbent contracts.
- Commercially numerate, able to build and defend a savings case with credible methodology.
- Able to design and implement process and systems, not just operate within them.
- Strong stakeholder management, able to bring budget holders with a history of buying independently into a shared procurement discipline.
- Genuinely motivated by building something from scratch, not inheriting a finished function.
- Persistent and diplomatically firm, able to change buying behaviour without alienating the stakeholders who own the budget.
- Commercially pragmatic, picks the battles that matter rather than trying to control everything on day one.
- Comfortable operating without an established team or precedent to fall back on.
Who are NWF Fuels?
NWF Group comprises of 3 key businesses: NWF Fuels, NWF Agriculture & Boughey Distribution. Employing over 1,400 colleagues across the group, we encourage and empower our people to progress and move fluidly through the group, meaning the sky really is the limit when you join us!
What makes NWF Fuels different? Our commitment to the customer and our focus on service is what sets us apart in the market, and our people are the driving force! We supply a range of fuel related products throughout the UK to domestic, agricultural, commercial and retail customers through our modern fleet of over 155 tankers and a strategically located depot network allowing us to service more than 113k customers. The business has grown organically and through acquisition currently standing as the third largest fuel distributor in the UK – we plan to climb higher and want you to be a part of it!
We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.
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