Supply Chain Specialist

Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Salary: PO6 - PO8 £54,267 - £62,766

Contract Type: Full time Permanent

Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 13/01/2026

Proposed Interview Date(s): TBC

Reference: 1963

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:

An opportunity has arisen for an experienced Supply Chain Specialist to join our award-winning procurement team, to be responsible for supporting the council’s category management approach to procurement, ensuring that it procures its goods, services and works in a cost effective and efficient manner through providing commercial expertise and specialist market knowledge.

As part of a shared service across both Waltham Forest and Redbridge Councils, this role will involve engaging with internal and external stakeholders at all levels in developing and implementing sourcing, procurement and contract management strategies.

In addition, you will also be leading on high value complex procurement projects, providing procurement expertise throughout the commissioning framework, negotiating with and developing third party providers.

Responsibilities will also include providing strategic leadership on the performance management of a portfolio of allocated contracts, including managing change and service development / improvement, the timely and accurate preparation and presentation of reports to various governance boards, alongside providing support, guidance and mentoring for junior staff, where appropriate.

The post will cover a variety of categories, with the opportunity to specialise in one area. Working as part of a cross functional and busy team, the successful candidate will understand the importance of effective procurement in an organisation and have the ability to clarify changing requirements, identify, recommend and support the development and delivery of service and contractual improvements.

>> Click here to download the Role Profile <<

Key Responsibilities:

• Deliver a program of procurement projects, both planned and urgent (unplanned) across both Waltham Forest and Redbridge Councils, in a professional and timely manner
• Lead with confidence on high value/complex projects
• Develop relationships with stakeholders, inspiring confidence and trust.
• Work as part of a professional team, supporting colleagues and the Head of Supply Chain in the flexible delivery of the whole teams work plan.
• Represent the Procurement team in both Councils at high level and professional meetings
• Build and deliver category plans and business cases which will be subject to critical review at professional boards.
• Support key stakeholders to present procurement strategies at board and participate in critical review
• Maintain at all times a professional demeanor when dealing with colleagues, stakeholders and suppliers.
• Actively contribute to team meetings and commit to their own continued professional development
• Supporting junior members of the team to develop their skills.

Qualifications and Requirements:

To be considered for this position, you should meet the following requirements:

Qualified to CIPS Level 4 or equivalent as a minimum

Several years experience of working in a busy procurement team

Working knowledge of PCR2015 and PA23 as well as working within a governance framework

Ability to work unsupervised and consistently delver on high quality and timely projects.

Terms and conditions:

Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;

Satisfactory declaration of interest;

As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Joy Thorpe, Head of Supply Chain at joy.thorpe@walthamforest.gov.uk

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.