Procurement Project Manager

Location: Templecombe, United Kingdom. Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space.

Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

12 months Fixed Term Contract Location: Can be based either Cheadle or Templecombe (hybrid working). We have an exciting new role to represent Procurement as a Procurement Project Manager (PPM), working on our SSN-AUKUS programme. SSN-AUKUS is a fleet of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines (SSN) to be built for the UK and Australian navies and will be based on the UK’s next-generation submarine design. That design will incorporate technologies from all three nations, including cutting edge US submarine technologies. The submarines will be built in the UK and Australia and work will begin by 2030, with a view to entering service toward the end of the 2030s (UK) and the early 2040s (Australia).

Thales is the Sonar Prime for the Integrated Main Sonar (IMS) for SSNA. As a procurement professional, the SSNA programme offers significant opportunities to deliver a step change in the identification, selection and management of the supply chain across multiple subsystems. As Sonar Prime our responsibilities include that of Contracting Authority to deliver procurement and contract management as a service across the entire IMS scope. As Prime we need to develop the Operating Model for how we will deliver on our responsibilities and the firewall that must be established where Thales is itself a potential supplier of solutions.

The programme is ambitious in its Sonar scope, the number of boats and cadence of their delivery so our focus now is on learning the lessons from the past, identifying opportunities for improvement and engaging broadly with our existing and potential supply chains to develop procurement strategies that will deliver best outcomes for Thales and the SSNA programme.

You’ll be a key integral part of the team within the businesses functions to enable the Procurement organisation and develop world class supply chain solutions (competitiveness, quality, on time delivery), fulfilling the customer needs and aligned with Thales Procurement strategy led by the Global Category Managers. To this end, and to introduce supplier innovations to our solutions, he/she will play a key role in the early stages (pre Gate 1 / definition phase) of Bids, Projects and/or Product teams activities.

The successful candidate will be working with internal stakeholders to ensure Acquisition or Sourcing strategies for a campaign, bid, or product or project are aligned to the needs of the business in the short, medium and long term durations. As well as working with the bid and product development teams to ascertain the work package needs, competitiveness objectives and target costs. Develop supply chain architecture; negotiate with the supply chain, under these mandates, to obtain a complete and competitive supply chain architecture which delivers the full requirement of the bid/product.

When in project phase, you will work closely with key stakeholders and functions as necessary, to manage all Procurement aspects ensuring work packages are executed in accordance with technical, program, cost and performance (quality and delivery) requirements.

• Ideally would have an Engineering background
• Capability to manage by influence and to convince
• Capability to animate international multi-organisation project (or bid) teams (requesters, Global Category Managers/Category Managers/Category Buyers, contract management…)
• Capability to speak out and to handle conflicts / problem resolution
• Understanding of the BL business model and of products’ lifecycles
• Make or Buy and risk management skills
• Basics in Finance
• Long term vision of product or project
• Ability to commit and to deliver
• Procurement experience
• Bid and Project Management competencies
• Bring added value / capture innovation
• Knowledge in cost evaluation, Design to Value, Lean approach.
• Basics skills in regulations (export control, Reach, etc…)

We’re committed to giving you opportunities to be your best. We believe in embracing the passion and potential of our people, and to achieve this we offer market leading training, development and experiences, along with the opportunity to be mentored and coached by some of the smartest minds in the industry. We hire from within as our first priority, so you’ll have a myriad of opportunities within our diverse, global organisation.

Flexibility Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Thales is an equal opportunities employer and diversity and inclusion are integral to the success of Thales.

Due to the sensitive nature of much of the work undertaken by Thales Training Solutions, all applicants must hold or be eligible for UK MoD Security Clearance (SC level minimum). In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

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