Category Specialist

AG Barr Group; Royton; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Up to 34 days holiday (depending on sp

Flexible holiday trading

Living Wage Employer

Peppy Health

Life assurance

Save as you earn scheme

Free AG Barr products during working

Pension

Annual salary review

Job summary

AG Barr is seeking a Category Specialist to support outsourced procurement and end-to-end sourcing. You will lead RFPs/RFQs, conduct market research, and manage supplier performance across key spend categories.

You will work to optimize contracts, plan renewals, and monitor spend. Ideal candidates have FMCG procurement experience, strong Excel skills, and a proven ability to influence stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Experience in Procurement, ideally within a FMCG environment.
• Commercial curiosity: ability to question costs and seek better buying options.
• Strong Excel skills (VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables) and data storytelling.

Responsibilities

• Lead the execution of RFPs and RFQs with market research and vendor pre-qualification.
• Drive negotiations to balance financial value with non-financial needs.
• Use spend analytics to identify savings levers and opportunities for consolidation.
• Manage supplier performance and ensure KPIs are met; address non-conformances.
• Act as custodian of contracts and plan renewals at least 6 months in advance.
• Provide market intelligence on inflation, raw materials, and labor shifts to inform strategy.
• Advise internal stakeholders to prevent overspending on unnecessary specifications.

Skills

Strategic Sourcing

Negotiation

Spend Analytics

Supplier Performance Management

Contract Lifecycle Management

Market Intelligence

Stakeholder Influence

Advanced Excel

AI Prompting

Presentation Skills

Project Management

Communication

FMCG Experience

Tools

Excel

Job description

Location: Any of our HUBS (Cumbernauld, Middlebrook, Milton Keynes, London)

Contract and working pattern: 37.5 hours per week

Are you ready to Be Your Best Barr None?

Lets Grow!!!

We are all about Being Your Best Barr None and having a career with real Moments that Matter!

Employing around 850 people across the UK, we are proud to be a responsible business that takes care of our people, values diversity, gives something back to our communities and works to minimise our environmental impact.

For 150 years AG Barr has been building great brands and is home to some of the nations favourite flavours.

At our core is IRN-BRU, launched in 1901 and still going strong today, the vibrant RUBICON fruit based brand, Boost making every moment better with a caffeine kick, hydration hit or tasty treat, and FUNKIN where real fruit means authentic taste.

We also have a number of exciting owned brands within our portfolio including MOMA, which crafts quality oats into great tasting oat drinks and porridges.

There's never been a better time to join us!

What we’re looking for…

A new opportunity has become available in the area of outsourced procurement supporting the end-to-end strategic sourcing process and manage the commercial health of specific spend categories.

As our Category Specialist you will be responsible for…

• Strategic Sourcing Support: Lead the execution of RFPs (Request for Proposal) and RFQs (Request for Quote). This includes market research, vendor pre-qualification, analyzing complex bid submissions and the creation and maintenance of assigned category strategies.
• Negotiation: You are able to lead tactical negotiations to ensure the best financial value is delivered for the business balanced with non financial requirements.
• Spend Analytics: Use data to identify "Savings Levers." You will analyze spend patterns to spot opportunities for consolidation or specification improvement and ensure the savings funnel is continuously filled with new ideas.
• Supplier Performance Management (SRM): Manage delegated categories of our supplier base. You will track KPIs to ensure they meet contractual obligations and ensure through regular suppliers meetings any non conformance is addressed .
• Contract Lifecycle Management: Act as the custodian of the category’s contracts. You’ll ensure that all renewals are planned at least 6 months in advance and the category manager is fully aware of the renewal plan. Including monthly PPV delivery, proactively managing risk registers and ensuring all other reporting requirements are met.
• Market Intelligence: Stay abreast of external market factors (inflation, raw material indices, or labor shifts) that might impact the cost of your categories and ensure learnings are built into Category strategies
• Stakeholder Influence: Act as a consultant to internal departments. You help them define what they need versus what they want to ensure the business doesn't overspend on unnecessary specifications.

What you’ll bring…

• Experience in Procurement, ideally within a FMCG environment.
• Commercial Curiosity: An ability to look at an invoice and ask, "Why are we paying this, and is there a better way to buy it?"
• Technical Skills: Advanced Excel is a must (VLOOKUPs, Pivot Tables) to clean "messy" spend data into a clear story. AI prompting to ensure AI is deployed to improve data interrogation and automate repetitive tasks. Ability to quickly create compelling presentations for internal and external purposes.
• Negotiation: Comfortable with "principled negotiation"—focusing on value and long‑term partnership rather than just the lowest price.
• Project Management: Ability to manage multiple sourcing projects simultaneously without missing contract expiry deadlines. Represent Procurement on Mid tier Commercial projects ensuring active participation in all project meetings, all actions are completed and provide management summaries on progress. .
• Communication: Excellent communication skills (written and verbal) to maintain professional relationships internally and externally.

What we offer…

We believe in creating a diverse and inclusive culture where your voice can be heard. Our skilled, loyal and committed people are critical to the future success of AG Barr which is why we are continually investing in our employees to develop their talent.

We look after our employees by offering a competitive salary and benefits package which includes;

• Up to 34 days holiday (depending on shift pattern)
• Flexible holiday trading
• Living Wage Employer
• Peppy Health
• Life assurance
• Save as you earn scheme
• Free AG Barr products throughout your working day
• Pension
• Annual salary review

And much more!

To find out more about what it is like to work for AG Barr, please visit our careers platform here.

We are an equal opportunities employer and happy to discuss any reasonable adjustments that may be needed for successful candidates with a disability, health or mental health condition.

Our large factories produce multi formats across a number of high speed modern lines, to high quality standards whilst maximising production outputs and minimising overhead costs and whilst we have highlighted our ideal requirements for this role, we are realistic that the successful candidate probably won't meet every single requirement in this advert, but we are big advocates of people growing in role. So even if you don’t meet every single requirement, we encourage you to submit an application - you may be just what we are looking for!

Speculative CVs from agencies will not be accepted.

Latest closing date for applications is 21st September

Please note, we may close vacancies early where we receive significant numbers of applications, so

#IND1

Create a job alert for this search

Category Specialist • Bolton, England, GB