Category Specialist

Job Title: Category Specialist

Location: Any of our HUBS (Cumbernauld, Middlebrook, Milton Keynes, London)

Contract and working pattern: 37.5 hours per week

Are you ready to Be Your Best Barr None? 

Lets Grow!!!

We are all about Being Your Best Barr None and having a career with real Moments that Matter!

Employing around 850 people across the UK, we are proud to be a responsible business that takes care of our people, values diversity, gives something back to our communities and works to minimise our environmental impact.

For 150 years AG Barr has been building great brands and is home to some of the nations favourite flavours.

At our core is IRN-BRU, launched in 1901 and still going strong today, the vibrant RUBICON fruit based brand, Boost making every moment better with a caffeine kick, hydration hit or tasty treat, and FUNKIN where real fruit means authentic taste.

We also have a number of exciting owned brands within our portfolio including MOMA, which crafts quality oats into great tasting oat drinks and porridges.

There's never been a better time to join us!

What we’re looking for…

We’re looking for a category specialist to support the end-to-end strategic sourcing process and manage the commercial health of specific spend categories. The Category Specialist bridges the gap between transactional buying and high-level category strategy, ensuring the business gets maximum value, minimal risk, and full contract compliance. The role will report to the relevant Category Manager and offer support as required.

As our Category Specialist you will be responsible for…

• Strategic Sourcing Support: Lead the execution of RFPs (Request for Proposal) and RFQs (Request for Quote). This includes market research, vendor pre-qualification, analyzing complex bid submissions and the creation and maintenance of assigned category strategies.
• Negotiation: You are able to lead tactical negotiations to ensure the best financial value is delivered for the business balanced with non financial requirements.
• Spend Analytics: Use data to identify "Savings Levers." You will analyze spend patterns to spot opportunities for consolidation or specification improvement and ensure the savings funnel is continuously filled with new ideas.
• Supplier Performance Management (SRM): Manage delegated categories of our supplier base. You will track KPIs to ensure they meet contractual obligations and ensure through regular suppliers meetings any non conformance is addressed .
• Contract Lifecycle Management: Act as the custodian of the category’s contracts. You’ll ensure that all renewals are planned at least 6 months in advance and the category manager is fully aware of the renewal plan. Including monthly PPV delivery, proactively managing risk registers and ensuring all other reporting requirements are met.
• Market Intelligence: Stay abreast of external market factors (inflation, raw material indices, or labor shifts) that might impact the cost of your categories and ensure learnings are built into Category strategies
• Stakeholder Influence: Act as a consultant to internal departments. You help them define what they need versus what they want to ensure the business doesn't overspend on unnecessary specifications.

What you’ll bring…

• Experience in Procurement, ideally within a FMCG environment.
• Commercial Curiosity: An ability to look at an invoice and ask, "Why are we paying this, and is there a better way to buy it?"
• Technical Skills: Advanced Excel is a must (VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables) to clean "messy" spend data into a clear story. AI prompting to ensure AI is deployed to improve data interrogation and automate repetitive tasks. Ability to quickly create compelling presentations for internal and external purposes.
• Negotiation: Comfortable with "principled negotiation"—focusing on value and long-term partnership rather than just the lowest price.
• Project Management: Ability to manage multiple sourcing projects simultaneously without missing contract expiry deadlines. Represent Procurement on Mid tier Commercial projects ensuring active participation in all project meetings, all actions are completed and provide management summaries on progress. .
• Communication: Excellent communication skills (written and verbal) to maintain professional relationships internally and externally.

What we offer…

We believe in creating a diverse and inclusive culture where your voice can be heard. Our skilled, loyal and committed people are critical to the future success of AG Barr which is why we are continually investing in our employees to develop their talent.

We look after our employees by offering a competitive salary and benefits package which includes;

• Up to 34 days holiday (depending on shift pattern)
• Flexible holiday trading
• Living Wage Employer
• Healthcare Cash Plan
• Peppy Health
• Flexible benefits e.g. discounts & cashback, gym memberships, technology purchases etc
• Life assurance
• Save as you earn scheme
• Staff sales discount
• Free AG Barr products throughout your working day
• Pension
• Annual salary review
• Ongoing professional development

And much more!

To find out more about what it is like to work for AG Barr, please visit our careers platform here.

We are an equal opportunities employer and happy to discuss any reasonable adjustments that may be needed for successful candidates with a disability, health or mental health condition.

Our large factories produce multi formats across a number of high speed modern lines, to high quality standards whilst maximising production outputs and minimising overhead costs and whilst we have highlighted our ideal requirements for this role, we are realistic that the successful candidate probably won't meet every single requirement in this advert, but we are big advocates of people growing in role. So even if you don’t meet every single requirement, we encourage you to submit an application - you may be just what we are looking for! Apply now!

Speculative CVs from agencies will not be accepted.

Latest closing date for applications is 21st September

Please note, we may close vacancies early where we receive significant numbers of applications, so apply now!

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