Procurement Category Analyst

Are you confident turning complex procurement and vendor data into insights that influence better decisions? Do you enjoy digging into spend, identifying trends and opportunities, and creating reporting that stakeholders can actually use? Are you looking for an opportunity to contribute to a procurement function as it continues to strengthen its category management and strategic sourcing capabilities?

CFA Institute is looking for a Procurement Category Analyst to support category management and contracting activities across our Procurement & Vendor Management function. You will use data, reporting and category intelligence to help optimize third-party spend, improve contract utilization and inform sourcing and vendor decisions.

Working closely with Category Managers, the Contracts Manager and stakeholders across the organization, you will have the opportunity to combine hands-on analytics with exposure to sourcing, vendor management, contract lifecycle activities and procurement process improvement.

What You’ll DoAnalyze vendor spend to identify trends, cost drivers, consolidation opportunities, tail spend and potential areas of risk.

Develop and maintain dashboards and reporting covering category performance, contract utilization, renewal timelines, compliance and vendor performance.

Collate, cleanse and interpret procurement and contract data, translating complex information into clear, actionable insights and executive-ready summaries.

Support category planning, sourcing events, RFP evaluations and vendor selection with structured analysis and recommendations.

Provide analytical support for vendor and contract negotiations through financial summaries, usage analysis, benchmarking and cost modelling.

Track contract milestones, renewal dates, supplier performance and contractual obligations in partnership with the Contracts Manager.

Conduct market and category research to identify pricing trends, market developments and emerging supplier risks.

Support forecasting, benchmarking, budget tracking and total cost of ownership analysis to strengthen sourcing decisions.

Maintain accurate procurement and contract data and help strengthen data governance across relevant systems.

Identify opportunities to improve workflows and reporting across the Source-to-Pay lifecycle, including automating recurring reporting where appropriate.

Help develop KPI frameworks, procurement procedures and compliance reporting that support a more structured, insight-led procurement function.

What We’re Looking For Demonstrable experience in procurement, sourcing, category management, finance, data analytics or contract operations, with the ability to show the individual contribution you have made to relevant projects or outcomes.

Advanced Excel capability, including pivot tables, complex formulas such as XLOOKUP or INDEX/MATCH, data cleansing and transformation, and basic financial modelling.

Strong experience analysing and interpreting data, including trend and variance analysis, data validation and integrity controls.

Experience building reports or dashboards using Power BI, Tableau, an equivalent BI tool, or advanced Excel reporting models.

Working knowledge of procurement, contract management, ERP, vendor management, P2P or S2P systems.

An understanding of procurement concepts including total cost of ownership, spend categorization, budget and variance reporting, supplier performance and basic cost modelling.

Familiarity with different commercial and pricing structures, including service agreements and fixed-fee, time-and-materials, subscription or milestone-based pricing.

The ability to turn raw data into clear visual reporting and recommendations for stakeholders and leadership.

Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including confidence navigating conversations around procurement processes and ways of working.

An open, collaborative approach and willingness to explore new tools and more effective ways of working.

Why Join Us Contribute to the continued development of Procurement & Vendor Management at CFA Institute.

Work across category management, sourcing, contracting, vendor performance and procurement analytics rather than focusing on one narrow area.

Use your analysis to influence real sourcing, negotiation, vendor and cost decisions.

Gain exposure to stakeholders across the organization and translate procurement data into insights that support business decisions.

Help strengthen dashboards, reporting, data governance and processes as the…