Senior Procurement Category Manager

. Credible procurement partner. Sustainable supplier management. Impacting the future. Senior Procurement Category Manager (Marketing) £56,000 - £63,000 (+ ) Grade: P3Reports to: Senior Procurement Manager Contract: Permanent Hours: Full time 35 hours per week Location: Stratford, London. Office-based with high flexibility (1-2 days per week in the office) Visa sponsorship: You must be eligible to work in the UK to apply for this vacancy. Cancer Research UK is not able to offer visa sponsorship. Closing date: 27 February :55This vacancy may close earlier if a high volume of applications is received or once a suitable candidate is found, therefore we strongly recommend that you apply early to avoid disappointment. If you require more time to apply as part of a reasonable adjustment, please contact as soon as possible. Recruitment process: Two competency-based interviews Interview date: From the week commencing 09 March 2026We operate an anonymised shortlisting process in our commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion. CVs are required for all applications; but we won't be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to fully complete the work history section of the online application form for us to be able to assess you quickly, fairly, and objectively. At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer. We are professionals with purpose, beating cancer every day. But we need to go much further and much faster. That's why we're looking for someone talented, someone who wants to develop their skills, someone like you.Cancer Research UK's Procurement team plays a critical role in ensuring the charity has the resources it needs to operate and deliver on our mission. Managing around £200m of annual spend, we are driving an ambitious transformation to create a strategic, data-driven procurement function that delivers value, mitigates risk, and fosters innovation. By embedding procurement best practice across the organisation, we aim to maximise value for money, enhance quality, improve efficiency, and uphold our promise to direct 80p of every £1 donated towards beating cancer.As a Senior Category Manager, you'll lead the procurement strategy and category plans for the s, shaping how Cancer Research UK partners with the market to maximise value, manage risk and drive innovation. You'll own high-impact category strategies, lead complex sourcing and negotiation activity, and build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders to influence key decisions across the organisation.This is an opportunity for you to play an impactful role in elevating Procurement's strategic contribution, ensuring we secure the best commercial outcomes, strengthen supplier performance, and unlock opportunities that directly enables our mission of beating cancer.If you're a strategic category management professional with experience overseeing large, complex categories with a proven record of delivering effective sourcing and contract management, we would love for you to join our mission. Developing and delivering the Procurement strategy for the s in alignment with Cancer Research UK's objectives and targets. Building strategic relationships with senior stakeholders across the organisation to understand business requirements and identify opportunities for increased value. Influencing senior managers to endorse and support the delivery of Procurement's strategy. Leading on supplier negotiations with suppliers to maximise value for money and risk mitigation for the charity. Analysing the supply market, assessing risks and business needs, and identifying opportunities to drive value, efficiency, and robust risk mitigation. Collaborating with stakeholders at all levels to deliver the category strategy, constructively challenging to optimise requirements and demand. Implementing category strategies and monitoring performance. Defining sourcing strategy for individual goods and services, establishing suitable preferred supplier lists, and ensuring this is adhered to. Leading end-to-end sourcing activities (including tenders, supplier evaluations, and contract negotiations), ensuring aggregation of demand and competitive benchmarking of quality and cost. Leading contract negotiations and drafting commercial schedules to ensure robust commercial and contractual terms are in place to protect Cancer Research UK and ensure value for money. Communicating preferred supplier arrangements internally, ensuring the smooth transition of the contract to the appropriate contract manager. Collaborating with internal stakeholders and contract managers to oversee contract governance, compliance, spend, and lifecycle management. Supporting and leading supplier performance and risk management to ensure strong value for money and effective risk mitigation. Developing strategic supplier relationships to identify joint opportunities for added value and innovation. Procurement professional with experience managing a large Marketing, Fundraising, or Events category (c.£100m spend) within a large, complex organisation. Experience managing end to end procurement and tender processes and delivering sourcing projects. Proven success in developing and implementing procurement strategies, category plans and delivering category led cost savings. Commercially minded with a successful track record of managing complex supplier relationships with experience in drafting, negotiating, and managing high-value supplier contracts and RFPs (Request for Proposal). Has built credible and collaborative cross-functional stakeholder relationships at all levels with excellent interpersonal, communication, influencing, and negotiating skills. A proactive problem-solver with a continuous improvement mindset for encouraging innovation while promoting best practices and strong governance. Excellent organisational and prioritisation skills with a successful track record of managing multiple priorities and delivering to deadlines within a fast-paced and changing environment. Experience mentoring and coaching junior team members.Our organisation values are designed to guide all that we do.Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism Human: Act to have a positive impact on peopleTogether: Act inclusively and collaborativelyWe're looking for people who can believe in and embody these organisation values and can use them to drive forward progress against our mission to beat cancer.If you're interested in applying and excited about working with us but are unsure if you have the right skills and experience we'd still love to hear from you.We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high-quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work-life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals.You can explore our benefits by visiting our . Additional Information For more information about working with us please or contact us at . For more updates on our work and careers, follow us on: and .Our vision is to create a charity where everyone feels like they belong, benefits from and participates in, the work we do. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, in particular those from ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented.We want to see every candidate performing at their best throughout the job application process, interview process and whilst at work. We therefore ask you to inform us of any concerns you have or any adjustments you might need to enable this to happen. Please contact