Procurement Category Manager - Soft Services

About The Company:

OCS UK & Ireland is a leading facilities management company with 50,000+ colleagues and a turnover in excess of £2bn. We deliver innovative, award-winning services within facilities management, hard services, cleaning, security and catering.

Our mission is to make people and places the best they can be for our colleagues, customers and the communities we serve. Our commitment to doing business the right way is rooted in our TRUE values - Trust, Respect, Unity, and Empowerment.

About The Role:

We're looking for an energetic and commercially minded Category Manager to join our Soft FM Procurement team. Reporting to the UK Head of Soft FM, you'll manage multi million pound categories across various Soft Service FM categories, build high value supplier partnerships, and deliver strategic sourcing initiatives that drive cost optimisation and service improvement across OCS.

What You'll Do

• Develop and deliver category plans that reduce cost, enhance quality, and manage risk.
• Lead end to end sourcing, supplier evaluation, negotiation, contracting, and onboarding.
• Build strong supplier relationships and drive performance through data led management.
• Benchmark markets to identify innovation, efficiencies, and best value.
• Drive supplier rationalisation and PSL alignment.
• Provide commercial insight and regular reporting on supplier performance and income.
• Partner with internal stakeholders to ensure quality, service, and client needs are met.
• Deliver cost reduction, mitigate inflation, and support M&A synergy opportunities.
• Uphold ethical sourcing, ESG standards, and compliance in line with company policies.
• Support procurement transformation and continuous improvement programmes.

About You Essential

• Self starter with strong ownership and delivery mindset.
• Proven category management experience.
• Strong negotiator with a track record of cost reduction.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience managing supplier performance and driving value.Good project management and cross functional working capability.
• Strong commercial acumen and understanding of TCO and SRM principles.

Desirable

• CIPS Level 4+ (not essential).
• FM experience (not essential).

We are an equal opportunities employer and rely on a diverse workforce with a broad range of knowledge, skills, and backgrounds to deliver our goals. We offer an inclusive and welcoming environment and actively encourage applications from all individuals regardless of race, gender, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or age.