Business Services Category Manager

Salary:National ranging £65,000 to £87,000 and London from £70,000 to £92,000

Are you interested in an exciting opportunity to build and lead our Business Services team, responsible for everything from FM and HR to frontline Professional Services?

The team/department

The Business Services Category Manager is a key advisor to senior stakeholders up to Director level and reports to the Chief Procurement Officer.

Responsibility for developing and maintaining category strategies to enable the Business Services procurement team to engage strategically with key stakeholders to:

Ensure business outcomes and Value for Money are optimally delivered

Procurement projects are planned prioritised and delivered to plan

Ensure that procurements are compliant with Procurement Regulations and FCA Policies

Providing category subject matter expertise across Professional Services, Legal, Marketing, HR and Facilities categories with annual spend of over £100m.

What you will be doing (the role)

Using established tools and techniques, lead the development of category management through analysis of business requirements and the gathering of intelligence, bringing together supplier and industry knowledge with those requirements.

Ensuring effective project portfolio management by owning the projects pipeline for respective categories, managing demand and resource planning, and ongoing project tracking and reporting to deliver against FCA priorities efficiently and effectively.

Supporting as required on key supplier relationships, including providing advice on escalations and the management of disputes.

Ensuring projects are run in a compliant manner to deliver Value for Money from procurement activity whilst risk is managed within the risk appetite of the FCA, whilst ensuring compliance with FCA processes and public procurement regulations and other applicable regulations and policies

Promoting procurement, supplier and contract management best practice to stakeholders, including presentations and relationship management with internal FCA teams

Supporting an increase in commercial awareness and understanding of procurement among the stakeholder population whilst advising stakeholders on sourcing options, route to market and commercial models for procurements

Team management responsibility of Procurement Leads and Specialists, to include workload and quality management and assurance, team capability assessment and personal and subject matter knowledge development

What you will get from the role

You will be part of the Procurement Leadership Team, developing and leading a team at a time of functional development which you will have a key input into, shaping the future of the department

Opportunity to understand and influence the workings of the financial sector at a time of considerable change and enjoy a unique aerial view of the financial services industry, with the opportunity to do meaningful work that makes a real difference to markets and peoples lives

You will know that the services you buy have a direct impact on the FCA’s ability to make a difference to millions of consumers

Work with and influence senior stakeholders across the FCA, with a mandate to play an increasing role in ensuring the FCA can demonstrate Value for Money from its supplier engagements

The FCA has a collaborative, purpose driven culture with a strong focus on DEI and well-being, based in great, modern offices

 Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your life. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option to top up your pension or base salary by taking this as cash.

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

28 days holiday per year plus bank holidays

Private healthcare with Bupa

A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)

Life assurance of eight times your basic salary

Income protection

We support hybrid workingwhich means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.

The skills and experience you will have

Minimum 

We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role.

Demonstrable evidence of delivering end-to-end category management and procurement processes for projects or programmes within the Public Sector

Proven experience of managing teams

Essential

Excellent analytical, communication, interpersonal, negotiating and presentation skills and the ability to multitask and prioritise own and category team’s workload

Experience of Public Contract/Procurement Regulations and Find a Tender processes

Previous experience of leading teams of a similar size, including the management of team performance and growth alongside workload allocation and delivery

Able to navigate organisational structure to establish an effective network and influence senior stakeholders up to Director Level to support procurement objectives and decision making

Supporting the Procurement Leadership Team in raising awareness of how the function can raise its profile through internal procurement marketing, and effective communications

About the FCA

The FCA regulates the conduct of nearly 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found here.

The FCA's Values & Diversity

Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation.

The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our manager role.

Flexible working

We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.

Multi-location

As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.

Useful information

Applications for this role close at 23:59 on 14th July 2024

This role is graded as Manager – Corporate

Got a question?

If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact: 

For internal applicants, please contact Sara Holland at k

For external applicants, please contact Ifrah Azam at k

What to expect from our interview process

The process will involve three separate stages: 

A competency-based interview

Psychometric Assessment

Final Interview

Your Recruiter will discuss the process in detail with you during screening for the role.

Recruitment Timeline: 

Closing Date: 14th July 2024

First Round interviews & Assessment: W/C 22nd July & Assessment W/C 29th July

Final Interview: W/C 5th August 2024

Please make the recruiter aware if you are going to be unavailable for any date during this time.

Application support

We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.

If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible. 

Please note that all applications must be submitted through our online portal, applications sent via email will not be accepted.