The Role
Leads procurement strategy, policy, sourcing, tendering, supplier negotiations, contract development, cost savings, risk management, and vendor performance. Manages and develops procurement staff while partnering with stakeholders across the business. The role drives category management, supplier rationalization, process improvements, compliance, and strategic commercial relationships across goods, services, and IT-related spend.
Summary Generated by Built In
- Hybrid working role - 2 days a week from home and 3 in the Edinburgh Park office
- On site car park
Reporting to the Finance Director, the Head of Procurement will form an integral part of the Finance function, setting procurement policy, negotiating existing or future supplier agreements with our critical suppliers, and managing a Senior Buyer. The Head of Procurement will make a big impact by creating cost efficiencies and quality targets and driving a more proactive approach to contract negotiations.
Key responsibilities:
- Build strong, proactive relationships between Procurement and the wider business, ensuring early involvement in contract discussions and negotiations to maximise value and reduce risk.
- Identify, analyse and negotiate optimal commercial agreements with current and new suppliers to generate cost-saving opportunities.
- Proactively create RFI’s and RFP’s with technical accuracy, to provide stakeholders with a starting point for future content development.
- Maintain a comprehensive tracker for savings, cost avoidance achieved.
- Carry out a comprehensive review of the Procurement function and its methodology – identifying and implementing improvements to reduce spend and drive-up compliance.
- Establish relationships with suppliers and agree terms and conditions – setting up framework purchasing agreements as required and negotiating contracts and acting as an escalation point for supplier issues.
- Foster close working relationships with internal stakeholders across the business.
- Cost analysis – construct detailed cost models/purchase price analysis of goods and services as required.
- Work with the procurement administrators in managing vendor/supplier performance.
- Review and rationalise the existing supplier base.
- Guide and support the Senior Buyer and procurement administrators
- Implement sourcing strategies
- Review, create and implement procurement policies, procedures and working tools to create efficiency across our organisation.
- Create and implement commercial contracts.
- Assist the procurement administrators in the implementation of supply chain management in a category focussed approach.
- Conduct tender processes on behalf of multiple legal entities.
- Deliver results in key performance areas including cost management, process & procedure improvements, innovation, and alignment with internal stakeholders.
- Support the Risk & Assurance team to manage supply chain risk with support of procedures, audits & supplier performance score cards.
- Develop expertise within the organisation around specific supply markets, as well as technological and economic changes that impact those markets.
- Liaise cross functionally with a diverse internal community of product/service experts.
- Deliver procurement cost, quality & risk, delivery, flexibility, and strategic vendor relationships.
- Identification of new suppliers, delivering commercial gain, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Manage and develop from Tactical buying to strategic supplier relationships.
- Continuously review industry and peer best practices, educate our organisation about them, and develop plans to implement those that provide a competitive advantage to Pulsant.
What / who we're looking for:
- Proven experience in a senior procurement leadership role, with the ability to balance strategic thinking and hands-on delivery.
- Strong negotiation and supplier management skills, with experience leading complex commercial discussions and building long-term vendor relationships.
- Experience developing and managing tender, RFP, and procurement documentation, ensuring robust and consistent procurement processes.
- Commercially astute with the ability to understand technical requirements and translate business needs into effective sourcing strategies.
- Broad category management experience across both goods and services procurement, including IT-related spend.
- Experience operating in a B2B environment and working with a wide range of stakeholders and suppliers.
- A collaborative leadership style, able to influence change by building trusted relationships.
- Experience managing and developing procurement professionals, creating opportunities for growth, learning, and career development.
- Exposure to supplier audits, contract reviews, and vendor governance activities.
If you’re excited about this opportunity but don’t meet every requirement listed above, we still encourage you to apply. We value transferable experience and potential - and you might be exactly who we’re looking for!
Pulsant offers:
- A supportive work environment with a focus on career growth, learning and development, work life balance and well-being.
- A friendly, family-like atmosphere where almost half of the team have been with Pulsant for 5+ years.
- Benefits include 5% pension contributions, private healthcare, life assurance, cycle to work scheme, EV scheme, free breakfast and snacks, Udemy license and more.
- Leave benefits - in addition to your annual leave you get your birthday day off, annual wellbeing day and 2 x charity days per year. "}" data-trix-content-type="undefined" data-trix-id="1058" >
To hear more about working at Pulsant check out:
pulsant.com/careers
linkedin.com/company/pulsant-limited/life/
Search @lifeatpulsant on LinkedIn and Instagram
Interview process:
Interview process:
- F2F interview with the hiring manager + People Business Partner
- Teams interview with the CFO
About
Pulsant is a leading UK data centre and digital infrastructure platform which provides highly interconnected colocation and private Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) capabilities nationwide. Our dedicated team of around 300 professionals (with an average tenure of 7 years), support around 700 clients across the UK. With 14 data centres in key regional locations from Edinburgh to Fareham and Manchester to Newcastle, all interconnected by a 400Gbps capable network, it’s the UK’s most geographically diverse platform. Pulsant’s platformEDGE ™ infrastructure is secure, sovereign, high speed and low-latency, covering around 97 per cent of UK populations within five milliseconds.
Skills Required
- Proven experience in a senior procurement leadership role, balancing strategic thinking with hands-on delivery
- Strong negotiation and supplier management skills, including complex commercial discussions and long-term vendor relationships
- Experience developing and managing tenders, RFPs, and procurement documentation
- Commercial acumen and ability to translate technical and business requirements into sourcing strategies
- Broad category management experience across goods and services, including IT-related spend
- Experience operating in a B2B environment with diverse stakeholders and suppliers
- Collaborative leadership style and ability to influence organizational change
- Experience managing and developing procurement professionals
- Exposure to supplier audits, contract reviews, and vendor governance
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The Company
What We Do
Pulsant is the UK’s premier digital edge infrastructure company providing next-generation cloud, colocation and connectivity services. With a network of 12 strategically located edge data centres, Pulsant brings the advances of edge computing within reach of 95 per cent of the UK population. Founded 27 years ago, with a mission to help businesses prosper, Pulsant delivers the transformational high-speed, high-bandwidth, low latency advances of edge computing, processing data close to the people and machines that generate and use it. Regional enterprises and service providers across the UK use Pulsant’s edge infrastructure platform to build, connect and deploy the applications they need to innovate and grow. Pulsant’s highly resilient, next-generation edge infrastructure platform offers unrivalled connectivity with the major global cloud providers. Its network of data centres is interconnected through a low latency network fabric delivering access to connectivity and compute services across the UK and beyond. Headquartered in Maidenhead and with over 1,200 clients and multiple accreditations, including ISO27001 and PCI DSS, Pulsant has more experience in working with organisations to achieve their digital ambitions through edge infrastructure and hybrid cloud environments than any other UK company
