Returns Materials Coordinator in Wilmslow

Waters is seeking a Returns Material Coordinator to join our Purchasing team, supporting the tactical management of our supply chain. This is an excellent opportunity to play a key role in ensuring effective control and flow of returned materials across the business.

In this role, you will be responsible for managing and coordinating both field and production floor failure returns back into the supply chain. You will challenge warranty status, cost, and material age while ensuring alignment with the Tactical Buying team. A key focus will be maintaining robust control of inventory value and supporting standard order book processes.

The Returns Material Coordinator position is both engaging and demanding—ideal for someone looking to take the next step in their career within a fast‑paced environment. You’ll collaborate closely with cross‑functional teams, work to tight deadlines, and help drive operational performance. This role would be well suited to candidates with experience in Buying, Planning, or Supply Chain Management.

At Waters we are committed to your continual professional development and encourage applicants from any industry with design, engineering, planning or manufacturing experience to apply.

• Work closely with the Tactical Buying team to maintain alignment with standard purchasing and order book processes.
• Manage and track all field and floor failure returns into the supply chain, ensuring timely processing and accurate documentation.
• Review and challenge warranty claims, cost allocations, and material ageing to protect business interests.
• Ensure ‘On Time and In Full’ purchase order delivery for refurbishments.
• Liaise with Engineering, Quality, and Operations to resolve return‑related issues and drive corrective actions.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives within the purchasing and supply chain functions.
• Provide regular reporting and visibility to stakeholders on returns status, trends, and risks.
• Ensure returned materials are routed appropriately—repair, scrap, rework, or supplier return—based on business rules.
• Timely resolution of invoice/ delivery queries.
• Any other related duties as specified by the Line Manager for the benefit of the dept.

• Experience in any purchasing, supply chain or buying role.
• We are open to candidates from different industries or backgrounds.
• Knowledge of engineering concepts could be useful, but this is also something we can train.
• Experience of using SAP.
• Financial acumen – Understands the impact of supply chain decisions on the P&L.

In addition to salary, we work flexibly and provide 25 days holidays, excellent family friendly benefits such as attractive employer pension contribution, life assurance, income protection and private medical. With Waters, there are plenty of opportunities for you to grow, develop and contribute.

We're actively building diverse teams and welcome applications from everyone. But simply having a diverse workforce is not enough. We aim to build an inclusive environment, where everyone can contribute their best work and develop to their full potential. We celebrate our differences and recognise the importance of teams reflecting the communities they serve.

We can make reasonable adjustments to our interview process according to your needs. We are proud to offer our employees the opportunity, where we can, to work flexibly. Please don’t hesitate to ask during the recruitment process around hybrid working and flexibility; we’ll do our best to support you.