Category Buyer

At National Grid, our commitment to a cleaner, greener energy future is powered by the dedication and ingenuity of our people. Join our team as a Category Buyer and be a part of something bigger—where your unique skills and passions can make a real difference. Together, we are superpowered.

As a Category Buyer
, working alongside a Procurement Programme Manager (Band

D) or Senior Category Buyer, you’ll be at the forefront of shaping and delivering complex procurement strategies that support our major capital programmes.

You’ll build strong, collaborative relationships with stakeholders across the business, work closely with colleagues within Procurement, and engage confidently with our supply chain and joint venture partners to ensure seamless delivery.

You’ll take the lead in understanding the needs, priorities, and long term goals of the business—translating them into a clear, aligned procurement strategy. This includes developing go to market plans for a variety of work packages and designing commercial and contract models that drive value and achieve defined business outcomes.

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a meaningful impact, shape strategic decisions, and contribute to the successful delivery of high value initiatives across the organisation.

This role is based out of our Warwick office
, with hybrid working. We’re happy to discuss any additional flexibility in working patterns or requirements that you feel could help to make this job work for you!

• Translate business requirements into clear and actionable supply chain requirements, by collaborating with stakeholders to develop and maintain the pipeline of future procurements.
• Collaborate with relevant Senior Category Buyer or directly with stakeholder counterparts to define the procurement strategy including delivery model, commercial construct, and go-to-market approach in order to frontload preparations with the supply chain and internal teams.
• Ensure coordination of the relevant Procurement teams including category managers, supply chain risk teams, strategic supplier leads, market supplier development to stitch together expertise from across the function in building the procurement strategy across the capital programmes.
• Drive successful procurement programme management including ownership of programme plans, operating in a matrix team, critical path management & risk to ensure on-time contract award.
• Integrate yourself into wider cross functional teams in order to gain understanding of market capacity and other insights to enable more robust supply chain planning in your capital programmes.
• Support the assessment of and mitigation of key risks that could impact on the delivery of the supply chain plan, typically, L2/L3 procurement-related risks for the BU. Create an environment to manage programme related risks through relevant stakeholders & DV heads.
• Roll up Procurement performance from across Procurement teams to support Business Unit (BU) meetings/reporting.

• Procurement and commercial strategy experience in construction capital procurement on large-scale infrastructure or construction programmes.
• Ability to operate within cross-functional teams and experience of programme management.
• Experience of managing capital procurement programmes within a supply chain / commercial context.
• Demonstrable ability to forge strong relationships with key stakeholders and supply chain.
• Experience of commercial / contract development, particularly construction contracts and building commercial strategies (FIDIC / NEC4 desirable).
• An understanding of regulatory environment and regulated procurement is desirable.
• Experience with sourcing software & systems (e.g., SAP Ariba, Coupa) is desirable.
• CIPS qualification (or progression towards CIPS) is preferred, though not essential.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At National Grid, we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace for everyone. So, if you’re excited about this role but your experience or qualifications don’t…