Category Manager – Consulting & Professional Advisory

Prudential UK Services; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

M&G Procurement is seeking a Category Manager for Consulting & Professional Advisory to own the category strategy, savings plan and to act as an internal commercial consultant to senior stakeholders. You will develop and execute the category strategy, lead high‑value sourcing events, negotiate with key vendors and build living plans that map market trends to cost reduction opportunities.

The team is transforming into an internal commercial consultancy with strong governance.

Responsibilities

• Build, own and execute the category strategy for Consulting and Professional Advisory, based on a detailed understanding of supply market structure, vendor commercial models, cost drivers and market trends.
• Maintain living category plans covering market analysis, supply base segmentation, demand profiling, route to market and savings opportunities.
• Develop commercial strategies for key vendors well ahead of renewal, so that M&G negotiates from a position of insight and has credible alternatives.
• Lead high-value sourcing events and negotiations, including setting the negotiation strategy, BATNA and walk-away position, managing concessions and holding positions with incumbents.
• Design sourcing events and evaluation criteria, and decide how much process each event needs based on its value, risk and complexity.
• Introduce competitive tension into renewals and new commitments, moving from single-source and incumbent renewal to structured market engagement, preferred supplier frameworks and normalised rate cards.
• Build and own the category savings plan against an agreed share of the group cost reduction target, sizing and prioritising opportunities by value and deliverability.
• Agree baselines and savings methodology with Finance before work starts, and follow savings through until they show in budgets and run rates.
• Build total cost of ownership and should-cost models, model the budget impact of sourcing options and how savings will be recognised in each department's P&L cost reports, and make sourcing recommendations on that basis.
• Use price, volume and demand levers, including rate reduction, volume aggregation, supplier consolidation and specification change.
• Challenge demand and specification using category and industry knowledge: question whether a requirement is needed at all, and at what volume, service level, specification and term; identify over-specification, duplicate purchasing and avoidable demand; and propose options such as a lower service tier, a shorter term or reuse of existing contracts, setting out the tradeoffs in commercial terms.
• Report savings and cost avoidance separately and accurately, and maintain a forward pipeline that gives Finance and the business visibility of upcoming activity.
• Act as a trusted commercial adviser to senior business owners across the Consulting and Professional Advisory spend area, engaging early in their planning rather than at the point of purchase.
• Influence stakeholder decisions on sourcing, demand and specification without formal authority, and present category insight, evaluation and commercial recommendations to governance forums.
• Act as the Procurement relationship lead for nominated senior stakeh

Job description

M&G Procurement is seeking a Category Manager for Consulting & Professional Advisory to own the category strategy, savings plan and to act as an internal commercial consultant to senior stakeholders. You will develop and execute the category strategy, lead high‑value sourcing events, negotiate with key vendors and build living plans that map market trends to cost reduction opportunities.

The team is transforming into an internal commercial consultancy with strong governance.