Strategic Category Manager – Maritime & Defence Tech

Ocean Infinity; Southampton; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 66,000; Full time

Job summary

Ocean Infinity is seeking a Category Manager to lead defined spend areas within the SCM team. You will own category strategies, manage complex sourcing, and collaborate with project managers, engineers and budget holders to deliver compliant, on-time outcomes in a fast-paced maritime robotics environment.

You will build stakeholder relationships, apply market intelligence and total cost of ownership analysis to drive value, while line-managing 1–4 Buyers and ensuring governance, risk management,

Qualifications

• MCIPS qualification or equivalent with CPD commitment.
• 5+ years in procurement with category ownership.
• Experience partnering with project, technical and operational stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own and deliver category strategies for defined spend areas, aligning to Procurement Senior Manager direction and business objectives, and translating strategy into sourcing pipelines, contracting plans and SRM actions.
• Act as the procurement single point of contact for assigned projects, owning the commercial interface with project managers, engineers, operational leads and budget holders.
• Build and manage effective stakeholder relationships, ensuring early engagement, alignment and clear expectation management across cost, schedule, quality, ESG and risk.
• Partner with stakeholders to shape demand into sourcing strategies, RFx activity, contracts and supply execution plans, balancing competing priorities and business governance.
• Lead complex sourcing and negotiations, including RFx, bid evaluation and preparation of clear, robust commercial award recommendations in line with the Delegation of Authority.
• Apply market intelligence, should-cost and TCO analysis to support informed decision-making and drive best value outcomes.
• Identify, challenge and mitigate commercial and supply risks, providing clear advice, recommendations and escalation where required.Drive supplier performance and governance, including SRM, KPIs, corrective actions, policy compliance, ISO standards alignment, ERP data quality and accurate reporting.
• Line manage and develop Buyers (1-4), reviewing sub-category strategies and awards, prioritising workload and acting as first point of escalation for commercial issues.

Skills

MCIPS qualification

Procurement experience

Stakeholder management

Leadership

ERP systems (NetSuite)

Negotiation

Sourcing

Procurement analytics

Education

MCIPS qualification

Tools

NetSuite ERP

e-sourcing tools

Contract management software

Procurement analytics tools

Job description

Ocean Infinity is seeking a Category Manager to lead defined spend areas within the SCM team. You will own category strategies, manage complex sourcing, and collaborate with project managers, engineers and budget holders to deliver compliant, on-time outcomes in a fast-paced maritime robotics environment.

You will build stakeholder relationships, apply market intelligence and total cost of ownership analysis to drive value, while line-managing 1–4 Buyers and ensuring governance, risk management,