Supplier Manager

Thames Water; East Hagbourne; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 42,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Defined contribution pension

Medical assessments

Performance-related pay

Benefits hub

Job summary

Thames Water in Didcot, Oxfordshire, is seeking a Supplier Manager to join the Renewals and Logistics team. You will expedite supplier POs to ensure timely delivery of spares and minimise stockholding while avoiding obsolescence.

This role requires analysing data to support reporting on inventory and ordering trends, acting as the first point of contact for internal and external customers, and driving continuous improvement across the supply chain.

Qualifications

• Experience in supplier or inventory management and customer service.
• Ability to analyze data and provide business insights.
• Proficient in Excel and Microsoft Access for data manipulation.
• Strong problem-solving and cross‑functional collaboration.
• Experience with data interrogation, analysis, and presentation.

Responsibilities

• Expedite supplier purchase orders to ensure timely delivery of spares.
• Identify and uplift supplier base to prevent service impact.
• Resolve order exceptions and invoice queries with finance.
• Maintain material master data and support supply chain operations.
• Provide data analysis and reporting for inventory trends.

Skills

Supplier management

Data analytics

Excel

Access

Problem solving

Cross-functional

Projects

Data presentation

Tools

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Access

Job description

We are currently recruiting a Supplier Manager to join our Renewals and Logistics team. Within this role, you will be required to expedite supplier purchase orders to ensure the timely delivery of spares, identify and upscale potential problems in the supplier base before they impact service levels.

Ensure orders are placed with our suppliers that are optimised to deliver: Availability of spares & Minimising inventory, and avoiding obsolescence risk.

Prompt action on order exceptions, ensuring the forecast, planned stockholding and ordering profile are all correct. Analysis of data to support reporting for insight into inventory and ordering trends to drive process and system change requests, and act as the first point of contact for internal and external customers, delivering high levels of customer satisfaction.

Location

Your base location will be Didcot, Oxfordshire.

Working Hours

Monday to Friday, 36 hours per week.

What you will be doing as a Supplier Manager

• Ensuring all supplier arrears have an up-to-date ETA.
• Deeply understand the causes of availability failure & actively manage performance improvement.
• Prompt resolution of items in Operations and Inbound Problem resolution, working with suppliers to prevent recurrence.
• Prompt resolution of invoice queries from finance, working to prevent recurrence.
• Ensuring all order exceptions are actioned promptly.
• All high-value orders are signed off appropriately and logged.
• Request order pull-forwards where there is a predicted stock out before the next planned delivery.
• Support Data analysis & reporting.
• Manage customer queries and complaints relating to spares job orders/requirements.
• Create and maintain material master data to ensure smooth supply chain operation.
• Ensure the completion of daily tasks by the Supply Chain team, maintaining accountability and a focus on continuous improvement.
• Availability/Job awaiting spares & non-stocked parts recovery lead time.
• ETA & Comment coverage.
• Job backorder ETA & Comments coverage.

What’s in it for you?

• Offering between £40,000 to £42,000 per annum, depending on experience and skills.
• 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service. (plus bank holidays)
• Contributory pension – Defined Contribution - Maximum of 12% -2x employee contribution.
• Personal Medical Assessments – open to all once a year.
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to company performance measures and targets
• Wider benefits scheme, including our benefits hub, which is packed full of offers and information to save you money and support your well-being.

What you should bring to the role

To thrive in this role, the essential criteria you’ll need are:

• Supplier or Inventory management, customer service or master data management experience
• Data analytics to provide business insight and reporting.
• Excel and Microsoft Access skills to support data manipulation.
• Demonstrable problem-solving skills.
• Experience of working closely with other departments and teams, removing all silo activity.
• Experience of an active role within projects.
• Data interrogation, analysis and presentation.

Find out more about our benefits and perks (Please note different T&Cs apply if on secondment)