Job Description
Who are we?
Qualifications, skills, and all relevant experience needed for this role can be found in the full description below.
Thames Water is the UK's largest water and wastewater company. We make a daily difference to our 15 million customers by supplying 2.6 billion litres of water through 32,000 km of pipes, keeping taps flowing and toilets flushing.
At Thames Water, every one of our actions, big and small, matters every day. Water is essential to life, so our business is always open.
What you'll be doing
We are on an exciting procurement journey and looking for talented Category Managers who can challenge, engage, influence and drive change within an ever-moving market to join us. We're looking for individuals to bring a fresh approach and a curious mindset.
As a Category Manager, you should be a commercial expert for the category that you lead. You should be able to utilise this market expertise to develop and deliver strategies, ensuring that Thames is market-leading in their commercial arrangements.
What does this role involve?
- You will play an essential part in the Procurement and Supplier Management team. You will ensure that a strategic and innovative Category Management approach is consistently embedded within the way that Commercial, and Thames Water delivers its service.
- Responsible for managing a portfolio of suppliers to ensure contracted expectations continue to be improved throughout the contract life cycle and to support these suppliers in delivering additional value to Thames Water
- Actively lead, develop, and manage end-to-end category plans for the short, medium, and long term. Identify a pipeline of initiatives to maximise value and outcomes for Thames Water, balancing commercial risk and value opportunities
- Providing extensive category knowledge and supplying market insight to internal stakeholders. Delivering category plans and sourcing events, providing SME support and identifying/managing category-level risk
- Becoming the commercial expert for the category enables Thames to quickly adapt to market changes.
- A clear and granular understanding of stakeholder and corporate needs in the short, medium, and long term
- Have detailed knowledge of the external supply market including suppliers, trends, innovation, market changes and dynamics that enable the identification of new suppliers of value to Thames
- Have strong engagement skills which allow you to support, influence and constructively challenge stakeholders to deliver the best commercial outcomes for Thames
- A clear understanding of Category Management principles with a track record of delivering results, and building fantastic supplier and stakeholder relationships
- Ability to lead and provide insight for the business on all aspects of supply market dynamics, regulatory and internal frameworks, suppliers, and technical innovations.
- Be able to identify market insights, trends, opportunities, and risks.
- Experience in negotiating with suppliers on all commercial and contractual matters and applying judgement as to what constitutes an acceptable level of contractual risk and supply resilience
Joining our Category Management journey at Thames Water makes a daily difference to millions of lives while building a better future for our customers, our region, and our planet.
This is an exciting time to join Thames Water as we embark on our collaborative "turn-around" plan. This plan will ensure an ambitious, resilient, and sustainable wastewater service for future generations. Having the freedom to influence and inspire, is an enviable opportunity to make your mark and develop your career with ambitious, like-minded people.
We offer a competitive salary, an excellent contributory pension and 26 days of holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service.
Thames Water is a dynamic, rewarding, and diverse place to work, with opportunities around every corner. If you join our team, you'll enjoy a fulfilling career, flexible working arrangements and really great benefits. We're also proud to be an equal-opportunity employer.
Find out more about working at Thames Water .
Outside of our daily role, we have the opportunity to ensure our customers, communities and environment can thrive through supporting the organisation in numerous areas such as partaking in our School Education program and providing Customer Incident Support, this may be by supporting our customers on the frontline as an Ambassador or being part of the team managing the incident as a Control Tower Lead. This is incredibly rewarding, and you'll be given full training - it's also a great opportunity to learn more about our business and meet colleagues.
Disclaimer: due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close a vacancy earlier than the advertised date. This is so we can manage all the applications properly and give candidates a positive experience. Once closed, we can't consider any further applications, so please submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.