Procurement Systems Manager

Job summary

What you’ll do…

As Procurement Systems Manager, you’ll play a key role in shaping how Forestry England and the wider Forestry Commission manage low‑value purchasing. You’ll lead the Tail‑End Spend category, ensuring it delivers strong commercial outcomes through effective supplier management, robust compliance and ongoing performance improvement.

Working closely with colleagues across the organisation, you’ll be the main commercial point of contact for our procurement systems. You’ll ensure the solutions in place are working well for our users, continuously improving how we buy, and helping teams get the best possible value from every pound spent.

The role also includes line management responsibility for a Business Support Officer. You’ll support their development, provide clear direction and ensure the smooth and effective delivery of day‑to‑day category activities.

Please see the job description below for more information and details about what we need from you.

Where you’ll work…

You'll be based at our National Office, Bristol with flexibility for blended working.

Job description

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

Procurement Systems Management

• Operational owner for procurement systems and marketplace platforms, maintaining commercial ownership end-to-end.

• Manage configuration, workflows, approval hierarchies, user permissions and catalogue structures to ensure alignment with commercial policy and purchasing controls.

• Maintain system governance, including compliance documentation and user-access protocols.

• Work closely with IT colleagues to resolve technical issues, escalating where needed while safeguarding commercial outcomes.

Vendor & Platform Relationship Management

• Lead supplier relationships for all procurement platforms, overseeing service delivery, performance against SLAs and continuous improvement.

• Chair regular supplier reviews to address operational performance, service failures and system enhancements.

• Coordinate resolution of system or process issues with vendors, IT, Finance and operational users.

• Ensure suppliers meet contractual, commercial and operational obligations.

Category Management – Tail-End Spend

• Hold overall ownership of the Tail‑End Spend category, including strategy, sourcing approach and supplier segmentation.

• Analyse spend data to identify trends, compliance issues, risks and opportunities.

• Develop and maintain dashboards, management information and category insights to support decision‑making.

• Lead structured category reviews with stakeholders to track performance and drive improvement.

Supplier Management

• Manage day-to-day relationships with tail-end suppliers.

• Monitor service levels, delivery performance, issue resolution, and continuous improvement.

• Coordinate commercial reviews, contract meetings and benefit-realisation activities.

• Challenge suppliers on poor performance and drive remediation.

Stakeholder Engagement & Change Management

• Serve as the primary liaison between the Commercial Services function and all business stakeholders across Forestry Commission.

• Provide advice on routes to market, compliance, purchasing controls, and operating procedures.

• Support Finance and operational leads with category queries and escalations.

• Run engagement sessions, briefings, and ongoing training.

Procurement & Commercial Delivery

• Deliver procurements relating to the Tail-End Spend Category as required.

• Develop tender documents, evaluation criteria, and contract schedules for small to medium value procurements.

• Moderate tender evaluations, draft contract awards, and manage standstill processes.

• Identify opportunities to consolidate spend, optimise pricing, or improve supplier mix.

Leadership & Line Management

• Line-manage the Procurement Systems Business Support Officer, setting objectives and supporting performance and development.

• Oversee the Procurement Systems Business Support Officer work pipeline, quality of outputs, and interactions with stakeholders.

• Provide coaching and build capability within the immediate team and wider organisation.

Continuous Improvement & Benefits Realisation

• Drive improvements in user experience, purchasing compliance, process efficiency and operation.

• Track benefits and support benefits realisation reporting.

• Identify value-for-money opportunities through analysis, supplier engagement and innovation.

• Support updates to commercial policies, templates and training materials.

And any other tasks, reasonably requested by your line manager.

Person specification

Essential professional and technical experience

• Experience in a relevant procurement, commercial or contract management role.

• Demonstrated ability to manage stakeholders at multiple levels.

• Experience with supplier management and performance review.

• Experience managing procurement processes.

• Awareness of UK public-sector procurement legislation and policy frameworks.

Desirable professional and technical experience

• Experience of category management in a public-sector environment

• Experience working with Small or Medium Enterprise (SME) suppliers or environmentally focused
organisations.

• Understanding of sustainable procurement and social value.

• Line-management or supervisory experience.

Qualifications

Essential

• Willingness to work towards, or possession of, CIPS Level 4 Diploma

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £40,388, Forestry Commission contributes £11,700 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Read more about the benefits on the Forestry England website.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

How to apply…

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

You will be assessed on experience and behaviours based questions during your interview.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Changing and Improving
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together
• Communicating and Influencing

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : FC Recruitment Team
• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

Forestry England Job Description - Procurement Systems Manager (PB4) Opens in new window (pdf, 168kB)