Commercial Buyer Apprentice

Package Description:

1. Bonus scheme
2. Cycle to work scheme
3. 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays, plus each year you will have the option to buy and sell leave
4. Enhanced maternity and paternity leave
5. Wellbeing Scheme, provided through Health Shield, giving every colleague – and their dependents – unlimited access to GPs and counselling, as well as cash back on a wide range of health and wellbeing treatment
6. Employee Support to include Life Assurance and critical illness pay
7. 24/7 Colleague Assistance Programme and Financial Wellbeing Support – access to affordable loans, savings accounts, advanced earned pay, and financial education via salary finance
8. Online savings- major retailers, utilities, entertainment plus many more!
9. Assessment day 4th June 2025, held at our Southampton Site!

About our Opportunity:
This is an exciting opportunity for anyone who enjoys working with people and developing their skills on real projects. This role will be involved in diverse business issues as it supports our commercial teams to identify risks, develop commercial proposals and business solutions, manage new business contracts and analyse business cases. It creates an opportunity for somebody to develop against the Level 4 Sales Executive Apprenticeship Standard, with a view to joining the team on a permanent basis. This role will be based on an operational site and therefore due to Health and Safety considerations, candidates must be 18 or over to apply.

What you will be doing:
As a Commercial Buyer Apprentice, your role will support the Commercial team and will have responsibility for the following:

1. Purchase material, in line with specified cost, quality and delivery targets.
2. Negotiate contracts, improve prices and terms of business with suppliers and review opportunities to make business savings utilising negotiation and procurement best practice tools and methods.
3. Build, maintain and manage supplier relationships and keep up good communication.
4. Ensure that a professional and consistent approach is taken in relation to all supplier relationships.
5. Assess and evaluate suppliers' performance to ensure contract compliance.
6. Contact suppliers to resolve price, quality, delivery or invoice issues.
7. Act as an interface between suppliers and other relevant departments on purchasing processes and new projects and activities.
8. Monitor market trends, competitor strategies and market suppliers.
9. Prepare reports and updates as and when required.
10. Visit customers and Buyer's customers regularly.
11. Provide support to other Commercial Buyers maintaining and gaining new business.
12. Develop and manage accounts, reporting and mentoring to drive daily/weekly targets.

About you:

1. Ability to be responsive and flexible in switching activities.
2. Good team player and enjoys working with others.
3. Capable of working on their own and self-motivated.
4. Organised with attention to detail.
5. Possesses a “can do” attitude and thrives on positive results.

Who we are:
‘Our purpose is to create a future where the materials we use don’t need to be extracted from the planet.’ At EMR, we give new life to unwanted materials. Every year, we recycle 10 million tonnes of metals and plastics, saving 19 million tonnes of carbon from entering the Earth’s atmosphere, diverting waste from landfill and protecting resources and habitats. We couldn’t do any of this without our team members. In return for all they do, we do everything we can to create an environment of belonging, value, support and growth. We’re proud to have achieved Great Place To Work status, but it’s about so much more than a badge. It’s about being recognised by our people for the continuous work we do to do better for them:

‘The people who work here are from varied backgrounds and have a variety of beliefs, all of which are accepted and respected.’
‘I’m encouraged to keep a healthy work-life balance so that I can be performing at my best.’
‘I’ve been supported every step of the way in my career progression.’
‘EMR offers a fantastic and inclusive environment; collaboration across the whole business, humility and hard work.’
If you want to be part of something bigger than yourself, have a role that really makes a difference and work with likeminded people towards the same purpose, click the link to apply.

Recruitment Agencies
We operate a strict Preferred Supplier List (PSL) and do not accept speculative CVs. Any unsolicited CVs, whether related to a specific position or submitted speculatively, will not be considered.