Category Manager - Projects

Job Title: Category Manager - Projects

Reports to - Principal Category Manager - Capital Projects, Asset & Operations

We are proud of our role at the heart of Britain's energy system. Our skilled colleagues bring gas to around 23m homes and over 200,000 businesses, including heavy industries and power stations that keep the lights on, all whilst enabling the transition of our network to hydrogen. All with the values of Simplicity, Ownership and Progress, and a shared mission to lead a clean energy future for everyone.

To support this transition Procurement is changing. A new operating model is being implemented that will place business partnering, supplier relationships, efficiency & value at the centre of what National Gas do and what they stand for.

National Gas are growing their procurement team and are seeking individuals who will work in collaboration with the market and their suppliers, to contribute to a clean energy future for everyone through strategic, commercial and sustainable leadership in all their procurement efforts.

Procurement will be leading the way in supporting the organisations mission to develop the hydrogen transmission system of tomorrow. ?

The Category Manager for Control Systems role will be responsible for building the category strategy leading strategic sourcing and supplier relationship management activities for our Control System replacement programme as well as for instrumentation, control, electrical and telemetry spend. The Category Manager will work closely with our current suppliers and others in the market to explore opportunities to drive more value into this area ranging from changing delivery approaches and digitisation to sustainability.

As well as managing the category the role holder will be responsible for ensuring that contracting for critical programmes of work are delivered in line with the National Gas capital programme plan. This will include developing the project strategy with the project teams and suppliers, in some cases delivering end to end sourcing of projects and ensuring contracts are awarded and mobilised to a high standard.

Category activities at National Gas are end-to-end and therefore responsibilities of the Category Manager cover the full lifecycle from analysis and supply market research through supplier relationship management.

In this role the Category Manager will work closely with colleagues in the Construction Commercial Contracts team who will ensure that all contracts are managed by professional Quantity Surveyors. However, the Category Manager will lead supplier relationship management with critical suppliers leading on specific initiatives which will drive incremental value as part of a centrally co-ordinated supplier relationship management programme to develop a partnering led approach to delivery of major construction programmes.

The Category Manager is critical in leading our aspiration to become "customer of choice" for our suppliers. Category Managers will work to ensure that we know our suppliers and that they know and understand National Gas and that we are making our business a great place to work for our supply chain partners.

• Develop and maintain Category Strategies aligned to business goals for the Control Systems category with a focus on delivering value for National Gas, supply chain and our customers.
• Acquire, maintain and develop expertise, knowledge and information to support continuous improvement in category performance from relevant internal and external sources.
• Maximise knowledge and scale of existing category strategies within the wider procurement team to drive maximum end to end project lifecycle value.
• Track the supply market, keeping abreast of developments, trends, risks and opportunities, including leading the continual engagement with existing and potential suppliers and ahead of external market factors.
• Deliver a diverse range of category initiatives from your Category Strategy working collaboratively within business and supplier stakeholders.
• Manage the delivery of sourcing events for your Category to ensure on time delivery of our capital plan and delivery of business commitments to value which includes quality, cost, security, social value and sustainability.
• Develop project specific sourcing strategies for high value, high complexity Control and Instrumentation projects.
• Support organisation-wide procedures for governance, risk and compliance management that manage, mitigate and minimise risks to National Gas.
• Work closely with the Sourcing & Contract Management Hub and ensure the work that they deliver to support the Category is aligned to the strategy set by the Category Manager.
• Work closely with the business stakeholders to capture lessons learnt, identify and implement continuous improvement opportunities including causes of compensation events and how these can be addressed in the future.
• Champion sustainable procurement and adoption of modern construction methods. Considers the benefits of aligning with the Government Construction Playbook.
• Communicate and manage relationships with external suppliers as part of the centrally co-ordinated supplier relationship management programme.
• In conjunction with the Procurement Business Partners, engage with the business and/or service functions to plan and support ongoing commercial activity (including annual value planning.

• Experience and an excellent track record in category management, as a strategic sourcing or as a procurement professional including a track record of continuous improvement and delivery of results in a variety of commercial settings.
• Good understanding and experience of key practices in construction with good level of knowledge of construction contracting especially NEC contracts which are predominantly used at National Gas.
• Experience in personally conducting category activities, including analysis, requirement definition, sourcing planning, supplier management and competitive tendering, in line with the agreed strategy.

• Stakeholder and supplier management
• Business requirements analysis, contract strategy and commercial acumen, negotiation strategy and approaches - advanced
• Project Management

• Office Location: Warwick
• Hybrid Working: Flexibility based on work requirements, expect to be with supplier or in a National Gas office 2/3 days per week.
• Contract Base Location: Dual - Home & Warwick
• Travel: Required (Low - Medium)
• Salary: £55k - £65k+ dependent upon experience