Procurement Category Lead

Procurement Category Lead – Professional Services and Insurance/financial services

Procurement and Supply Chain · dedicated partnership with a leading UK insurer

Location:      City of London, 3 days a week, onsite + 1 day a month at the consultancy’s West End office

Salary:           £90k–£110k + benefits

Your mandate:

Shape how the client buys external expertise across consultancy, contractors, recruitment, legal services and outsourcing. Advise senior HR, Legal and Finance leaders, improve workforce and sourcing models, and help establish the founding team.

What you’ll do:

Set the direction

• Own the Professional Services category strategy across outsourcing, consultancy, contractors, recruitment and legal services.
• Introduce commercial models and sourcing routes that improve value.
• Lead cross-category sourcing initiatives as needed.

Lead the big deals

• Shape demand and challenge requirements before spend is committed.
• Lead high-spend, high-risk or complex sourcing events from market analysis to contract signature.
• Optimise the contingent workforce model across contractors, consultants and outsourced personnel.
• Mark up and restructure services agreements, supported by the legal team.

Make suppliers better partners

• Build supplier relationship management plans for consultancy, recruitment and legal partners to improve performance and innovation.
• Manage regulatory, operational and commercial supplier risk.
• Support regulatory and compliance reporting for the COO.

What you’ll bring

• 8+ years’ strategic procurement or category management, with 5+ years in professional services.
• Proven experience optimising contingent workforce models.
• Confident contracting skills and good working knowledge of commercial law, including SOWs and MSAs.
• The presence to advise executive-level stakeholders on sensitive, complex projects.

You’ll stand out with:

• financial services or specialty insurance experience.
• outsourcing, operating model design or workforce optimisation work
• a working grasp of off-payroll (e.g. IR35 rules).