Strategic Procurement Manager

Are you a skilled category manager with strong knowledge of housing and property procurement?

Do you have expertise in public sector procurement?

Are you a self-starter with the motivation to drive best value from a category portfolio?

If so, we would like to hear from you.

Brighton & Hove City Council is seeking a Strategic Procurement Manager for the Housing and Property category, which covers areas such as housing repairs and maintenance, construction, facilities management, estates, compliance and capital works.

The Corporate Procurement Team supports council services with procurement and tendering through a category management approach. The team ensures regulatory compliance while driving value, delivering savings and realising social value. We are committed to embedding equality, diversity and inclusion into our processes and promoting fair and accessible opportunities.

The team works in a hybrid setting across Hove Town Hall and remotely.

Contract type: Permanent.

Interviews to be held: 18/19 November 2026

There is full information about the role below and attached but, if you would like an informal discussion, please contact Edward Barfoot, Procurement Partner on edward.barfoot@brighton-hove.gov.uk.

About the role

The Brighton and Hove City Council Procurement Team provides direct local support to council services, offering expertise in tendering activity and contributing to the delivery of service objectives, savings and wider benefits, including Social Value and Community Wealth Building.

There are four categories in the Brighton and Hove Procurement Team:

• Housing and Property
• Social Care
• Corporate Contracts, IT&D and Professional Services
• City Services and Infrastructure

In your role as Strategic Procurement Manager, you will lead the Housing and Property category, coordinating and supporting procurement and contracting activity and managing relationships with commissioners, contract managers, Heads of Service and Directors. You will use spend and market data to shape category priorities and will bring strong knowledge of housing and property markets, including housing repairs and maintenance, construction, facilities management, estates, compliance and capital works. You will lead major, complex and high-value procurement projects, oversee projects across the category and provide line management, coaching and professional support to procurement colleagues.

We are seeking someone who thrives in a fast-paced, creative and commercially minded team. You will have:

• Strong knowledge of housing and property procurement, including repairs and maintenance, construction, facilities management, estates, compliance, capital works, relevant markets and contract models.
• Substantial procurement and category management experience, with a sound understanding of public procurement legislation, routes to market and commercial best practice.
• Experience of leading complex, high-value procurement projects from early planning and market engagement through to contract award and mobilisation.
• The ability to use spend, market and supplier insight to shape category priorities, manage risk and deliver value for money, social value and strong service outcomes.
• Effective communication, negotiation and influencing skills, with the confidence to work collaboratively with senior stakeholders, commissioners, suppliers and partners in a politically sensitive environment.
• Experience of leading, coaching and developing procurement colleagues, supporting a positive, inclusive and high-performing team culture.

We offer a wide a range of benefits that people in our small team enjoy, including working with a friendly group of colleagues who encourage a flexible and diverse workplace and maintaining a work life balance.

Encouraging a diverse workforce
Our city is known and loved for its diversity. Not only is the mixture of people, culture and skills vital to the economic and social development of the city, it's what makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live, work and visit. We are committed to developing and retaining a workforce that is representative of the diverse communities we serve so we welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. In order to achieve our aims of proportionate representation, we particularly encourage applicants from a BME or White Other background as well as those who identify as disabled, male or LGBT.

Find out more about our commitment to being a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone can achieve their potential by reading about our fair and inclusive actions, our anti-racism strategy and the work we are doing to encourage a diverse workforce (brighton-hove.gov.uk).

Why work for us?
As a council, we want to:
• be connected
• be confident
• be innovative and creative
• be diverse and inclusive
• be healthy and psychologically safe
For more information about our values and the benefits of working at the council, visit Why work for us which gives details of our wellbeing support, our benefits including leave and pensions as well as details of our training and development.

How to apply
Please read our Apply for a job at the council pages carefully. They give you all the guidance you need to complete your application as well as information on what will happen after you’ve submitted your application and at interview.

As part of your application, you will need to provide your education and career history and answer some application/shortlisting questions. Your answers to the application/shortlisting questions are the most important part of your application as they will be used in the shortlisting process to assess whether you meet the essential requirements for the role that are set out in the person specification and to decide whether you should be offered an interview. Before you start your application, please read our Shortlisting questions guidance (brighton-hove.gov.uk) as this gives important advice which will increase your chance of success in the shortlisting process.

AI advice for candidates
We are interested in hearing about your experience and skills in your own words. While we value people who know how to use AI, we ask that you minimise using it in your application.

We are keen to hear how your experience and skills align to our values and the skills and experience needed to perform well in our roles with clear real examples from you. To support you in this, we have guidance on using the STAR model which can help you ensure you are telling us your whole story. We also provide clarity on the skills we are looking for in our adverts and in the job description/person specification attached to each job advert.

All the applications we receive are read by at least two hiring managers and we do not use AI in this process. Our experience of reading applications is that those that have heavily used AI contain generic paragraphs that are strikingly similar to other applicants’ responses. This makes it extremely difficult to differentiate between applications, and doesn't give us enough evidence of your individual skills. There is a risk that we will therefore not be able to shortlist you. Instead, we recommend you ensure your application stands out by presenting clear examples of your actual skills and experiences in your own words.

Additional information
Your starting salary will be pro rata if the above position is less than 37 hours or term-time only.

We are a workplace that supports flexibility and employee wellbeing in the way we work whilst providing the best service for our customers. Team and service working arrangements are designed to support both employee work life balance and team collaboration. These would be part of your individual working arrangements alongside any personal preference agreed with your manager in advance of joining. Your contractual location will be the designated council office for your team and travel to and from your contractual location would be at your own expense.

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