Senior Buyer

London, England, United Kingdom

12/13/2024

Job Description

The Senior Buyer will lead in the management of an efficient material and plant purchasing process on the project, negotiating, and placing of material, equipment, and plant hire orders against operational requisitions.

The role may include some people management responsibility, and may take responsibility for a specific project or hold a larger remit in terms of purchasing responsibility.

They will also be expected to carry out procurement in an ethical, transparent and fair way whilst demonstrating best value with robust procurement process, innovation, lessons learnt and an inclusive procurement process at all times.

Responsibilities

• Attend internal pre-start meetings and Team Meetings
• Progress the provision of materials and services to meet contract programmes and deadlines
• Research and evaluate areas of opportunity and reduce costs where possible
• Assess and evaluate suppliers and undertake performance reviews to ensure contract compliance and manage performance improvement activities
• Prepare tender enquiries and send out for pricing in accordance with the project Procurement Schedules to meet the project programme
• Manage relationships with all stakeholders involved in the procurement process ensuring stakeholders are dealt with in a professional, open, and collaborative way and to ensure the projects requirements are reflected in the procurement process for every procurement
• Control and manage every procurement in a timely way to ensure continuity of the works and provide best for project outcomes and value for money by:
• ensuring tender documentation is fair, robust with clear projects requirements
• ensure that accurate and logical tender evaluations are produced
• conduct supplier meetings and negotiations for packages
• produce recommendations for internal and Employer approval, prior to placing orders
• provide progress updates in the procurement schedule and input into the reporting of procurement activity as required by project controls requirements
• Represent procurement department at project meetings, presenting information as required
  
  

Essential

QUALIFICATIONS

• Extensive technical knowledge of materials and plant and an excellent understanding of the supplier base
• Ability to prioritise workload and work to deadlines
• Professional and pleasant manner in dealing with internal and external customers
• Strong IT skills, including working knowledge of computer systems within the commercial environment
• Highly skilled at building and maintaining effective and productive relationships with key stakeholders and suppliers
  
  

Desirable

• A relevant qualification such as NVQ Level 4 or higher
• Analytical, numerically astute with strong proven problem-solving abilities
• Experience of working on major civil engineering or rail projects
• Working knowledge and application of NEC contract
• Confidence and ability to assert influence
• Experience of dealing with an international supply chain and associated
  
  

About Us

Costain helps to improve people’s lives with integrated, leading edge, smart infrastructure solutions across the UK’s energy, water, transportation and defence markets. We help our clients improve their business performance by increasing capacity, improving customer service, safeguarding security, enhancing resilience, decarbonising and delivering increased efficiency. Our vision is to be the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions company. We will achieve this by focusing on blue chip clients whose major spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments, legislation or essential performance requirements. We offer our clients leading edge solutions that are digitally optimised through the following five services which cover the whole lifecycle of their assets: future-shaping strategic consultancy; consultancy and advisory; digital technology solutions; asset optimisation and complex programme delivery. Our culture and values underpin everything we do.