Procurement Officer and Senior Procurement Officer

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

Full Time / 37 Hours Per Week / Permanent

What you'll be doing

Joining our procurement team at Leicester City Council, you'll become part of a fast-paced highly dynamic Mayoral Authority, procuring a whole host of important and interesting contracts for goods works and services across a range of sectors.

With roles available across our team due to career progressions, there is an opportunity to join our team as a Procurement Officer or Senior Procurement Officer.

Day to day, within these roles you'll:

• Undertake and/or be involved in managing a variety of procurement projects including liaising with service departments).
• Consider procurement strategies/approaches and plan the procurement process.
• Prepare relevant procurement documentation (including evaluation schemes), advertise the contracts, carry out market engagements, manage evaluation of submissions, conduct tender clarifications.
• Draft correspondence, prepare evaluation reports, manage communications with bidders.
• Apply the Council's contract procedure rules and appropriate legislation, including the Procurement Act 2023, when conducting procurement activity and advising clients.
• Liaise with legal services to agree contract documentation.

As a senior team member you'll also:

• Undertake procurement activity more independently including higher value/higher complexity.
• Deputise for the Procurement Manager as and when required.
• Provide expert advice on procurement strategies/approaches, project management support and planning the procurement process and respond to queries.
• Manages communications with preferred suppliers, working with users and technical and legal specialists to draft contracts and technical schedules developing acceptance procedures and criteria.
• Coach, support and supervise junior members of the team, playing an active role in their growth and progression. This includes providing guidance on best practices, sharing technical knowledge, offering constructive feedback and helping them build the skills and confidence needed to succeed within the procurement function.

What you'll need

Public Sector procurement experience is preferred but equivalent Private Sector experience and transferable skills are accepted. You'll have knowledge and experience relevant to a specific category specialism, e.g., Goods, Works and Services, including Procurement Act 2023 training (TPP) or commitment to complete this within 4 weeks of starting.

Using your experience of procurement, tendering and contract management processes, as well as basic knowledge of contract law. You'll be highly organised, with the ability to prioritise time and objectives effectively. With strong analytical skills with ability to review information presented within tender responses and evaluations to identify the best value.

In addition, you'll have excellent communication skills, ability to present statistical or technical reports and liaise with both internal and external stakeholders. Including, proficient IT skills, ability to use and manage our IT tendering systems for advertising contracts.

About the role

You'll have flexibility in hybrid working being both office based, at City Hall or working remotely from home to suit your needs and those of your clients. The team currently attends City Hall for a minimum of 1 day a week, where you will join them.

This is a career graded post procurement officer at LG Band 6 £32,061 - £34,434 Per Year and Senior procurement officer at LG Band 9 £42,839 - £46,142 Per Year. Appointment to a level will depend on the outcome of the selection process and experience of the successful candidate. Dependent on availability of work/vacancy at a higher level, progress will be by satisfactory performance, agreed at annual Appraisals and through ongoing supervision.

The roles are subject to a DBS check and Right to Work check. We are unable to offer sponsorship with this role.

What we can offer you

As well as the satisfaction of helping to improve thousands of lives across Leicester, you can look forward to a work environment that encourages a healthy work/life balance. You'll enjoy generous annual leave, membership of the Local Government Pension Scheme and the option of flexible working.

In addition, you can choose from several flexible benefits, including discounts on city buses. For an illustrative value of your benefits package, take a look at our benefits calculator.

Join us

We're committed to recruiting a diverse and highly talented workforce as we continue to build a council that is fitting and representative of our great city. That's why we've designed our recruitment process to put you at your ease, make you feel welcome and bring the best out of you. We'll do all we can to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To help you with your application, take a look at the 'our approach to recruitment' page.

For an informal discussion, please contact: amina.laher@leicester.gov.uk