Careers Page

Why work in procurement?

What is procurement?

Professional Buyer - you get to spend other people's money for a living!

Procurement professionals are skilled negotiators and analytical thinkers. It's their job to make sure that their organisation is getting the best value for money, including savings, efficiencies, and wider benefits.

Why have a career in procurement?

Every large organisation has a procurement team - public, private and voluntary sectors
Procurement Professionals are in demands in all sectors
Can influence company policy and engage at a senior level in organisations
You could travel the world!
You can make a real difference, particularly in the public sector
What you buy can be really diverse and you will learn so much about all sorts of things!

What key skills do I need or will develop?

Negotiation
Driving a good deal
Communication
Presenting with confidence
Analytical
Developing good relationships
Innovation
Creativity
Numeracy
Customer service

Training options

On the job - from Trainee to Director
Apprenticeships
CIPS qualifications

If you are ready to grow your career through the many exciting opportunities within STAR, look no further. Below are some of the exciting roles STAR have to offer

Job Position	About the role
Apprentice	As an apprentice it allows you to work in a supported learning environment to develop the skills and knowledge to then go on to completing a Business Administration Apprenticeship qualification. Some day-to-day tasks may include dealing with new vendor requests, extracting and manipulating data from Excel spreadsheets, dealing with incoming calls on the STAR landline, assisting with raising purchase orders and invoices, booking rooms and meetings for colleagues and undertake general office duties including filing, photocopying, e-mailing, and scanning. Overall, this allows you to gain different types of office experiences whilst also learning and completing the qualification.
Trainee Procurement & Business Support Officers	As a Trainee Procurement Officer, you will spend time supporting Procurement Officers and Category Managers within the various procurement categories, gaining knowledge within the various stages of the procurement processes. You will assist with the different stages of the procurement process, exemptions and modifications for contracts. You will monitor the shared procurement inbox allocating/approving incoming vendor requests, respond to general enquiries and answer the main landline.
Admin Officer	As the Admin Officer, it is your role to ensure incoming telephone enquires are dealt with, managaing incoming emails, arranging meetings, assisting with raising purchase orders and invoices, assist the wider STAR team and any other general tasks.
Business Improvement Officer	As a Business Improvement Officer, it is your role to ensure the wider STAR team can complete their jobs as smoothly as possible. This can include ensuring the team have access to all necessary systems and making sure those systems are up to date. Ensuring STARs 'Quality Management System' has all the current content available, dealing with all incoming Freedom of Information requests, attending meetings and user groups, collating and publishing data, liaising with the wider team, partner STAR Councils and external providers.
Procurement Officer	As a Procurement Officer, it is your role to support stakeholders during the various stages of the procurement cycle. This can be in the form of advising the correct route to market to developing relevant tender documents and assessing tender returns. Ensuring contract data is kept up to date to ensure accurate transparency and audits. Guide Trainee Procurement Officers through procurement processes to help with their learning journey.
Officer Manager	As an Office Manager, it is your role to ensure the office runs smoothly, and everyone has the tools they require to complete their roles efficiently, along with managing a team of staff who support you with this.The role also expands to projects including continuous improvement to create more efficient tools and processes and arranging and managing events. An exciting part of the role is arranging social events, where the whole team can connect outside of the workplace and further build their reports.
Category Manager
Business Partner	As a Business Partner you manage STAR relationships with existing partner/customers(s) and also look for collaborative relationship(s) between STAR and new partners. You lead Service Level Agreements with customers and lead multi-partner procurement activity. Carry out service reviews for wider councils and organisations and draft and implement action/improvement plans.
Head of Strategic Procurement	As the Head of Strategic Procurement you are an integral part of the STAR Wider Leadership Team. The role provides strategic leadership and management of an allotted Category within the STAR Team, ensuring successful delivery of the Category Strategy. This includes managing a professional, customer-focused service which meets the needs of customers and progressively achieves efficiency savings for the STAR collaboration through the adoption of a strategic Category Management approach to the procurement process. This is achieved by building strong relationships with our partners, ensuring a continuous improvement ethos across the team and leading on strategic projects.
Assistant Director	As Assistant Director you are an integral part of the STAR Leadership Team. The role provides strategic leadership and management across the STAR Team, ensuring the successful delivery of the STAR Business Plan. This includes leading on strategic projects, building strong relationships with senior officers and Directors from our Partners, ensuring a continuous improvement ethos across the team, being commercial and ensuring a balanced budget through efficiencies and income generation, and championing STAR externally at a regional and national level.
Director	As the Director of STAR, it is your role to lead STAR Shared Procurement Service across multiple partner organisations. Working with STAR Board and STAR Joint Committee. Lead the development of the procurement strategy for STAR, responsible and accountable for the delivery of robust procurement activity that maximises opportunities for efficiency and that delivers best value, and is aligned to the Corporate Priorities of the STAR partners including the commitment of embedding Social Value to deliver social, environmental and economic sustainability. Lead STAR Procurement ensuring staff have the necessary skills, training and competencies, to enable career progression. Responsible for upholding and maintaining STAR’s governance arrangements, systems and procedures to drive and maintain compliance. Develop strategic relationships locally, regionally and nationally to ensure best practice and continuous improvement for STAR.

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