Tactical Buyer

Location: Cheadle, 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.

Our Opportunity

The Tactical Buyer MSET UWS will support the Marine Sensor Enhancement Team (MSET) contract, which is a vast new contract we have awarded – worth £1.85 billion. It will maximise days at seas for the Royal Navy Fleet by ensuring sustained, long-term availability and resilience of critical assets, spares and repairs over the next 15 years. By significantly increasing equipment availability, M-Set will increase the longevity of sensor and sonar capability, which is critical for the Continuous at Sea Deterrent (CASD) and wider ship and submarine capabilities. The result is GLOBAL Security will be boosted, the Royal Navy is presently fully engaged around the world. The Royal Navy operates ships and submarines across every ocean and continent. On Active duty, 365 days a year. Thales UK will aim to provide full availability of the equipment that is the eyes and ears of the Royal Navy. Utilising data technology, including AI and virtual reality to provide a more proactive, and predictive maintenance systems, the project will secure a projected 450 employees across 5 Thales sites in the UK.

Responsibilities

• Within a regional procurement centre, the Tactical Buyer is involved in the transactional procurement process of PR/PO (Procurement Requisition/Procurement Order).
• Responsible for transforming a PR into a PO using the different elements coming from category buyers, in a time frame (SLA) and to follow up the PO.
• May periodically be required to expedite and follow-up on Procurement orders to ensure specific timing and quality requirements are met, including post award responsibility for supplier deliveries.
• Support the category team in quote preparation, data analytics, quotes summaries, discrepant supplier inputs, and other tasks related to the sourcing process.
• Receiving procurement requests and verifying their conformity to operating methods.
• Transforming procurement requests into procurement orders.
• Managing purchasing order cancellation, rescheduling or PO information change (quantity, price).
• Analysis of quotations and summarization for category buyers.
• Make sure that suppliers acknowledge P.O. receipt and provide delivery commitment.
• Follow-up and expediting of Procurement orders.
• Ensuring accuracy of the order, GL account, or project number, ship to location, supplier information on Procurement order, and relevant notes/comments on the Procurement order document.
• Managing disputes and problem solution.
• Managing local negotiations within the DoA threshold.
• RFx management in e-ACQ under DoA.
• Prepare reports on Procurements, including cost analysis.

Skills and Experience

• Demonstrate and show proven Skills and Experience related to the above mentioned responsibilities.
• Computer literacy particularly with respect to MS Office packages and MRP systems.
• Customer (internal and end) focus.
• Understanding of the technical and non-technical requirements.
• Delivery orientated while ensuring the budget and all contractual commitments are met.
• Proven negotiation skills.
• Ability to build effective relationships with Suppliers.
• Relevant experience in procurement or supply chain/manufacturing roles.
• Experienced in using MRP/ERP systems such as Oracle or SAP.

Benefits at Thales

We strive to create an environment where you can prioritise your wellbeing and have designed our benefits to give you the flexibility and power to do so. Our core benefits include a pension plan, private medical insurance, life assurance, income protection as well as an employee assistance programme. In addition, our flexible benefits platform gives you the power to customise your benefits to suit your needs. You can choose to add a number of optional benefits including: healthcare cash plan, health assessments, family cover private medical insurance, buying/selling annual leave, gym membership discounts + much, much more. You can also enjoy exclusive access to our discount site!

Alongside a competitive base salary, we offer a variable compensation plan bonus, 27 days annual leave + 1 company day + UK public holidays as well as the opportunity to volunteer up to 3 days to support local charities/communities in which we work.

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.

If you are interested in this role, we would encourage you to have informal chat with the Talent Acquisition Partner.

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

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.

Great journeys start here, apply now!