Procurement and Contracts Category Manager

What if your expertise could directly shape how a council secures value, drives innovation, and delivers better outcomes for the communities we serve?

If you're someone who wants to join a professional, forward-thinking Procurement & Contracts Team where your influence genuinely matters and your judgement is trusted at every stage of the commercial lifecycle, and you're ready to lead meaningful change, champion best practice and take ownership of a category portfolio that strengthens governance, transparency and long-term public value, then this could be the role for you.

What will your day look like?

As a Procurement & Contracts Category Manager you will typically:

• Lead and deliver procurement activity across your category portfolio, plan, lead and manage procurement projects, ensuring compliance throughout the commercial lifecycle and supporting service areas to make sound commercial decisions.
• Develop and maintain the appropriate suite of tender documentation for procurements you lead, taking responsibility for effective evaluation processes, criteria and scoring.
• Support and implement category plans and provide procurement and contract management advice, guidance and support to service areas.
• Use analysis and insight to shape sourcing approaches and support continuous improvement in policies, systems and procedures.
• Ensure transparency requirements are delivered, including maintaining key registers and pipelines (e.g., contracts register / procurement pipeline) in line with Council requirements.
• Build strong, collaborative working relationships with senior stakeholders, influencing constructively to support effective procurement and contract management practice and improved outcomes.

Who are we looking for?

We are recruiting two experienced Procurement and Contracts Category Managers to lead a portfolio of procurement activity, supporting effective contract management practice and the delivery of effective category management across the Council.

This role is central to ensuring our third‑party spend delivers best value, meets transparency requirements, and supports the Council's wider ambitions for North East Lincolnshire.

Benefits

Joining our dedicated Procurement & Contracts Team means becoming part of a collaborative, supportive and solutions‑focused professional community that plays a vital role in strengthening the Council's commercial capability.

The team invests in professional development, offers clear career pathways and support for CIPS progression, whether you are already working towards CIPS or willing to start.

You will have a generous leave entitlement (including bank holidays) and enrolment into a local government pension, access to the exclusive RewardNEL platform, and various salary sacrifice schemes.

Flexible working and excellent training and development opportunities are available.

Equal Opportunity

We regularly review data to ensure our recruitment processes are fair, transparent and promote equal opportunities for all. We also have an in-house Equalities Champions Group that works to promote and embed inclusivity in the workplace, helping us identify areas where we can take positive action, and make the organisation a safe space for colleagues to feel connected.

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