Category Manager

Contract Category Manager

Location: Hybrid, with a core office base in Birmingham, London or Edinburgh
Contract type: Contract, 4 months
IR35 status: Inside IR35
Industry: Financial Services

About our client

Our client is a well-established UK financial services business with a long history of helping customers plan and prepare for their financial futures. They offer colleagues flexibility and trust, and in return they expect curiosity, accountability and high standards.

The role

This is a chance to make a real impact in one of Procurement's broadest and most commercially significant category areas. Professional Services covers consultancy, advisory and specialist support. Temporary Staffing helps the business access skills and capacity when it needs them.
As Category Manager, you'll partner with senior stakeholders to understand what they need, why they need it and how Procurement can secure the right outcome for the business and its customers. By getting involved early, you'll help shape demand, build a forward-looking pipeline and focus effort where it makes the biggest difference.
The role sits at the intersection of category strategy, commercial insight and sourcing delivery. You'll use data, market intelligence and supplier expertise to anticipate needs and spot opportunities before they reach market. You'll then lead the sourcing and negotiation needed to turn them into measurable results, all in a complex and highly regulated environment.

Key responsibilities

• Category strategy: Develop and deliver procurement strategies for Professional Services and Temporary Staffing that support departmental and organisational goals.
• Supplier selection and management: Identify, assess and manage supplier relationships end to end, ensuring high-quality, best-value services.
• Sourcing and negotiation: Own the strategic sourcing process and negotiate robust commercial and contractual terms that protect the business and drive long-term value.
• Cost and value optimisation: Deliver savings and efficiencies through demand management, volume consolidation, specification optimisation, cost re-engineering and process improvement.
• Risk and compliance: Manage sourcing risks including regulatory change, ESG standards, supplier and contract risk, and business continuity.
• Stakeholder collaboration: Work with Finance, Legal, Risk and senior business leaders to align procurement outcomes with strategic priorities.
• Continuous improvement: Work with the Procurement Centre of Excellence to embed best practice and technology across the function.

About you

• Several years' experience in an indirect Procurement lead or manager role, ideally in Professional Services and/or Temporary Staffing.
• A strategic mindset and a track record of delivering commercial value, from defining category scope through to evolving the strategy over time.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and build trust at all levels, including senior leaders.
• Strong commercial and contractual negotiation skills, with experience managing complex supplier relationships and projects.
• Working knowledge of procurement systems and financial services regulation.
• MCIPS qualified or working towards it (advantageous, not essential).

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG - The Vertage Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.