Senior Category Manager (Digital & IT)

Are you a passionate and experienced senior IT & Digital category professional looking for your next challenge?

Do you thrive on delighting customers with a service that is sensitive, responsive, flexible, balanced and cost effective?

With accelerated growth across the NHS and Public Sector delivering transformational change, this is an exciting time to lead a growing category team.

You will be comfortable working in a regulated environment and focused on creating, delivering and managing complex framework agreements; designed to satisfy current client demands and meet future needs. You’ll also help develop key strategic plans to generate solid growth pipelines across your portfolio.

A confident communicator, you will build and manage internal and external stakeholders and develop strong supplier relationships. Working with some of the most recognised global brands, you’ll also seek out new entrants to deliver market-leading, award-worthy procurement solutions.

If you are looking for real career satisfaction making a difference in an evolving NHS landscape, we want to hear from you!

What you will be doing:

• Leading, mentoring and supporting a team of buying staff of different levels
• Creating, developing and managing a category portfolio of OJEU compliant Framework Agreements
• Developing and implementing short and long-term category strategies
• Driving uptake of portfolio across the landscape, working alongside key support teams including: Innovation, Implementation, Marketing and Consultancy
• Managing a portfolio of projects, working closely with key stakeholders to influence procurement choice and drives savings and efficiencies and improve quality
• Offering procurement support to the customer Service Directorates, Heads of Procurement and Key Leaders on a national footprint
• Negotiating with the supplier base ensuring that all aspects are covered within the category from a product, service and stakeholder basis

What you will bring:

• Membership of CIPS or alternative Technology institution with comparable qualification    
• Significant public sector procurement experience within Digital & IT with a working knowledge of EU procurement rules and legislation.
• An in depth understanding of Digital & IT solutions within the Healthcare industry and the wider public sector, including future changes within this market place.
• Demonstrable experience of selling framework solutions into healthcare and wider public sector organisations with a strong focus on revenue generation.
• Strong senior stakeholder and customer engagement/relationship building experience is a must in this role.
• Commercially astute in relation to organisational growth targets regarding uptake of our framework agreements

It would be great if you had:

• Experience and knowledge of working with the NHS
• Understanding and experience of e-sourcing and e-procurement solutions

If you are interested in this role but not sure if your skills and experience are exactly what we’re looking for, please do apply, we’d love to hear from you!

Employment Type: Full Time, Permanent
Location: UK - this role with require travel to the Salford office once per month
Security Clearance Level: DBS
Internal Recruiter: Katie
Salary: up to £60,000 per annum Depending upon experience and development needs
Benefits: £5,400 car allowance, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy additional days, private medical, life assurance, pension, and generous flexible benefits fund

Although this role is advertised as full-time, we support many ways of working and can offer a range of flexible working arrangements. So, if you’re interested and need to work flexibly, we encourage you to apply and talk to us about what might be possible.

Loved reading about this job and want to know more about us?

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) was created by the Department of Health and Social Care to deliver corporate services to the NHS. A unique joint venture with Sopra Steria, a European leader in digital services and software development, we make life easier for NHS employees, patients, and suppliers, and deliver value for money to the taxpayer. Proud members of the NHS family, we provide finance & accounting, digital, procurement and workforce services to more than half the NHS in England, and our solutions are underpinned by cutting-edge technologies and our teams’ expertise, in-depth understanding of the NHS, and commitment to service excellence.

We share common values and unity of purpose with the rest of the NHS family, are committed to being a force for good, and are dedicated and empowered to act responsibly and sustainably at organisational, team and individual level.

Would you like to join us on our journey?