Category Manager - Procurement

Team: Procurement - Commercial and Procurement Service

Job Family: Providing - CBG12
Salary: £46,822 - £52,100 per annum pro rata
Hours: 37 hours per week

Location: You will be expected to attend a CBC office location as often as needed to carry out your role, which will be no less than once per week.

Contract Type: Hybrid - Permanent

Closing Date: 9th December 2026

Interview Date: 16th December 2026

About the role

The Procurement Team provides a strategic and professional service that ensures the Council achieves value for money in sourcing third-party goods, works and services. The team also manages procurement risks, drives best practice, and ensures compliance with the Council's Constitution and procurement regulations.

As a Category Manager, you'll provide procurement support primarily to the Assets, Facilities Management and Capital Contracts portfolio under the Place and Corporate pillar, and will support the business partner approach to service areas. You will lead high-value and complex procurement projects, develop category strategies, improve market engagement, support contract and supplier management activity and ensure procurement contributes to the delivery of wider corporate objectives.

This key role will take ownership of the procurement pipeline, provide strategic commercial leadership, support delivery of the capital programme, and ensure appropriate commercial and procurement support is available across the portfolio to deliver planned outcomes, manage risk effectively, strengthen business partnering and relationships and deliver compliant, timely, value for money contracts. The role will move beyond transactional execution to provide end-to-end strategic commercial leadership.

In this role, you will need to be confident in engaging with key stakeholders and have the knowledge and experience to lead and manage end to end procurement activity. You will act as a key advisor to service areas ensuring compliance with procurement legislation (PCR15/PA23) whilst understanding and delivering against service needs.

This is a hybrid role with a team office day once a week on a Thursday.

Key Responsibilities

About You

• Must have a CIPS Level 4 qualification and seeking to progress to Level 5. Educated to degree level would be desirable but not essential.
• Experience of working within a procurement or commercial environment.
• Proven track record of delivering end-to-end complex procurements under PCR 2015 / Procurement Act 2023.
• Understanding and experience of delivering complex 'Works' procurements under JCT/NEC contracts.
• Understanding of public sector procurement regulations and governance.
• Ability to manage multiple procurements to agreed timescales.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills.
• Good analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate data and market intelligence into actionable insight.

Our Offer

We have a number of rewards and benefits available to our staff, to view these please visit our Rewards and Benefits page

Our aspiration is to be a truly flexible employer. We welcome discussion on location, hours and working pattern as part of the application process.

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You will be expected to demonstrate how you meet the key accountabilities and competencies in this Recruitment Pack.

Our Competency Framework and Qualification Guidance are to be read in conjunction with our Recruitment Pack.

For an informal discussion about this position, please contact: Sarah Deyes at sarah.deyes@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk or call 0300 300 4878.

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To maintain a fair and consistent approach for applicants, it is Central Bedfordshire Council's policy to only consider applications made via our online application system and we therefore thank you for not submitting your application offline.

Your application to us is a reflection of who you are professionally and should give us an accurate and authentic picture of your skills, experiences and if applicable qualifications. Before you submit your application, we will ask you to confirm if you have used AI.

All new starters will join us on a four‑month probationary period. During this time, if you are offered a Hybrid role you will be required to attend a Central Bedfordshire Council office location more frequently to support thorough and well‑supported onboarding into your role. Please keep this in mind if you anticipate extensive travel to Central Bedfordshire.

Please note we are unable to offer sponsorship for our roles. Successful applicants that may require a visa will need to consider the options for obtaining and/or maintaining the legal right to live and work in the UK for the duration of the contract offered.

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