Senior Buyer - Permanent

Full Time - Hybrid Working

Our offer to you

We pride ourselves in being a great place to work, providing a supportive culture with opportunities to grow and develop your career, achieve a healthy work life balance and to be recognised for the great work you do. You will receive:

• Competitive salary and pension scheme
• 33 days holiday (inclusive of bank holidays) - increasing to 38 days over 5 years
• Hybrid, Flexible working
• Cycle to work scheme Electric Vehicle Scheme
• Health and Wellbeing portal – access to financial, health and wellbeing support and an Employee Assistance Programme
• Discounts – you will have access to Blue Light and NHS Discounts as well as discounts on mobile phones, gym membership, cinema tickets, restaurants, holidays and shopping

About Us

This is a fantastic opportunity to join a team of over 1,700 employees and over 29500 volunteers, united by our goal of saving lives through essential first aid services, training and campaigning.  As a charity with rich heritage and a long history of serving humanity, we are proud of our past and excited about creating a healthier, safer, more resilient future. 

St John Ambulance works at the heart of communities, supporting and enabling them to access and receive physical and mental health first aid. We do this through developing and providing effective community response and outreach services (e.g. Ambulance response, Falls response, Night Time Economy and Homelessness outreach) and using our longstanding expertise to empower people with vital clinical skills and the confidence to use them (e.g. our Volunteers and Community Advocates, NHS Cadets and Young Responders programmes). There is also a buoyant social enterprise network which delivers first aid training and supplies medical consumables to businesses and consumers.

Job Summary

• To assist the Head of Commercial Buying & Procurement, maximise SJA purchasing power through implementation of local, regional and national agreements to reduce operating costs 
• Working with the Head of Commercial Buying & Procurement the post holder will be responsible for building relationships across the business to identify fresh opportunities to make savings. 
• The post holder will be responsible for sourcing new products and services and tendering for new and existing national contract arrangements. 
• The post will assist in the management of suppliers holding them accountable for their commitments. 

About You

To be successful in this role, education to Educated to GCSE level or equivalent (Grade C / 4) including Maths & English, minimum 5, Further or higher education – CIPS – Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply level 6 or higher or equivalent, Significant experience of working within a Procurement function at a level of senior/lead buyer or above.

About the Role

• Manage the day-to-day sourcing requirements for goods and services required across the charity to ensure best value for money and maximising savings potential. 
• For each tender, create a team of key stakeholders and cross functional representatives, to ensure that their requirements are clearly captured as part of any tender process, ensuring best practices are followed, tenders fully evaluated, and results presented in a clear concise summary manner. 
• Carry out full end to end tender exercises on non-medical related products and services, including the contracting and negotiation of all IT related products and services. 

Please see the job description for more detail (this can be viewed on our website or once you click apply)

Find out more about us, including our new Ask Me campaign, at www.sja.org.uk 

If you are a current St John Ambulance employee, please apply here: Click here

For all other candidates, or St John Ambulance volunteers wishing to apply: please apply below

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive high volume of applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

St John Ambulance are committed to increasing the diversity of our team and making sure we best reflect the diversity of the communities we serve.   At St John, everyone is valued and supported to thrive, we have several networks including Multi Culture, Disability and Accessibility, Pride, Family and Carers and Women’s groups.  We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and engender a sense of belonging for all, by creating an environment of mutual respect, where we value unique differences and demonstrate authentic allyship. We believe passionately in equality, diversity and inclusion.   

Please note: St John does not accept speculative CVs and will only review CVs sent in application for an advertised vacancy.