Senior Buyer (Indirect Sourcing Team) - Environmental Test, Seat Test, Inspection & Programmes [...]

Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Ltd; Denham; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Highly competitive non-contributory pension scheme

4x salary Life Assurance

Lunchtime finish on Fridays

Personalised training and development plan

Healthcare Plan

25-days annual leave plus bank holidays

Opportunity to purchase additional annual leave

Retail discounts platform

Occupational Health team

Workplace Nursery Benefit scheme

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Senior Buyer to join their Indirect Sourcing department in Denham. This role involves sourcing and purchasing indirect materials and services, managing supplier relationships, and ensuring compliance with budgetary guidelines. The ideal candidate will have proven experience in supplier negotiations, strong communication skills, and a solid understanding of MRP/ERP systems. This innovative firm is committed to investing in your professional development, providing a supportive environment where you can thrive and make a real impact in the engineering and manufacturing sector.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in supplier negotiations within regulated environments.
• Strong communication and relationship building skills.

Responsibilities

• Sourcing and purchasing indirect materials and services.
• Managing supplier relationships and contract negotiations.

Skills

Supplier negotiations

Communication skills

Relationship building

Knowledge of SAP or related MRP/ERP systems

Understanding of technical drawings

Problem solving

Project management

Tools

SAP

Job description

Location: Denham

Salary: Highly competitive salary and benefits package

Application Deadline: Monday, April 14, 2025

Job Summary

What you’ll be doing

Martin-Baker is the world’s leading manufacturer of ejection seats, helping to protect aircrew in the world’s most advanced military aircraft. Our mission is simple - to save aircrew lives.

Join us on this mission as a Senior Buyer within the Indirect Sourcing department, based in Denham. You’ll join a highly professional team which has built a strong reputation for building winning relationships with suppliers and stakeholders at Martin-Baker.

You’ll be responsible for sourcing and purchasing indirect materials and services, supporting Environmental Test, Seat Test, Programmes and Inspection functions.

Key aspects of the role include strategic sourcing, contract negotiation, vendor management, internal stakeholder management and ensuring compliance with budgetary guidelines. You’ll collaborate with various internal departments and colleagues to identify sourcing requirements, streamline processes, and enhance operational efficiencies. This is an exciting time to join Martin-Baker and make an impact.

As a Senior Buyer, you'll be the primary point of contact for suppliers, managing supplier relationships including performance against KPI indicators, proactively identifying and managing risks (of materials and parts); identifying new suppliers via tendering and performing RFO exercises. Contract management including reviewing key contract clauses, working internally with MBA legal team to ensure that risk is mitigated. You'll support colleagues across several functions including Environmental Test, Seat Test, Inspection, Programmes, Engineering Metrology and X-Ray, working in conjunction with Commodity Managers to research and evaluate suppliers, actively ensuring that products, services and materials are supplied to the required technical quality standards.

Further aspects of the role include generating and maintaining supplier data using internal systems to support finance and governance processes and complying with sourcing policies. You’ll build winning relationships with suppliers to identify bottlenecks, problems and solutions.

The future of engineering and manufacturing is changing. To future-proof your career Martin-Baker will always keep investing in your development. That’s a long-term promise. Because we want to learn from you, so keeping your skills up to date is important to us, and important for our future. We’re after people who are curious and enjoy solving problems.

Characteristics & Skills

• Proven experience of supplier negotiations within regulated manufacturing environments.
• Strong communication, influencing and relationship building skills with colleagues and suppliers.
• Knowledge of SAP or related MRP/ERP systems.
• Understanding of technical drawings and specifications.
• Practical problem solving and project management skills.
• Share and demonstrate the Martin-Baker Values.

You’ll have the opportunity to work alongside experts who will help you to obtain a wide understanding of an engineering business within the Sourcing function, you’ll develop new skills and gain strong industry experience.

Where you’ll be based

• Denham, Middlesex.

Your benefits in detail

• Highly competitive 9% non-contributory pension scheme (18 +)
• 4x salary Life Assurance
• Lunchtime finish on Fridays
• Personalised training and development plan
• Healthcare Plan
• 25-days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Opportunity to purchase additional annual leave
• Martin-Baker + (retail discounts platform)
• Occupational Health team
• Workplace Nursery Benefit scheme
• Cycle to work scheme

We believe in equal opportunity. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone is respected. We want you to be able to do your best work.

All candidates will be treated equally and fairly, regardless of their background, or any characteristic protected by law. Candidates will be selected entirely on their skills and competencies and in alignment with each role’s specifications and / or requirements. All published adverts will be aligned with the Company’s Diversity and Inclusion commitment.

For all successful candidates, Martin-Baker will undertake background security checks. As part of this, we will need to confirm your identity, employment history and address history to cover the past five years as well as your nationality, immigration status and criminal record.