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About the Role

The Category Manager is the commercial owner of the IT Outsourcing (ITO) category, acting as an internal commercial consultant. This role offers deep category knowledge, strategic sourcing capability, and negotiation expertise to build and own the category strategy and savings plan, compete with vendors, and influence business specifications and purchasing decisions.

Responsibilities

Build, own and execute the category strategy for IT Outsourcing (ITO).
Maintain living category plans covering market analysis, supply base segmentation, demand profiling, route to market and savings opportunities.
Develop commercial strategies for key vendors well ahead of renewal.
Lead high-value sourcing events and negotiations, including setting negotiation strategy, BATNA and walk-away position.
Manage senior supplier relationships under commercial pressure.
Design sourcing events and evaluation criteria.
Introduce competitive tension into renewals and new commitments.
Build and own the category savings plan against an agreed share of the group cost reduction target.
Agree baselines and savings methodology with Finance.
Build total cost of ownership and should-cost models.
Model the budget impact of sourcing options.
Use price, volume and demand levers.
Challenge demand and specification using category and industry knowledge.
Report savings and cost avoidance separately and accurately.
Act as a trusted commercial adviser to senior business owners.
Influence stakeholder decisions on sourcing, demand and specification without formal authority.
Present category insight, evaluation and commercial recommendations to governance forums.
Act as the Procurement relationship lead for nominated senior stakeholders.
Seek and act on stakeholder feedback.
Set the commercial direction for key suppliers in the category.
Influence and partner with in-business vendor management and vendor performance teams.
Find value in the existing supply base.
Direct category execution work delivered by the India team.
Review the quality of execution outputs from the India team.
Shape commercial terms, including pricing mechanisms, indexation, service credits and exit provisions.
Apply third-party risk management, outsourcing and regulatory requirements.
Apply procurement standards and governance proportionately.
Use spend data, Power BI dashboards and AI tools to analyse trends and anomalies.
Coach and develop Category Specialists and India colleagues.
Plan how onshore and offshore capacity is used across the category.
Share category intelligence across the Procurement team.

Requirements

Substantial category management or strategic sourcing experience, with a track record of delivering measurable savings in a complex organisation.
Category knowledge and experience as set out in the Category Knowledge Requirements.
Demonstrable experience of planning and leading negotiations on high-value contracts with major vendors, including setting negotiation strategy and BATNA.
Credibility with senior stakeholders, evidence of influencing business decisions without formal authority, and experience of presenting commercial recommendations to senior governance forums.
Strong commercial and financial judgement, including total cost of ownership and should-cost analysis.
Ability to explain budget and P&L impact to stakeholders.
Confident using spend data and management information to identify trends, anomalies and sourcing opportunities.
Able to work from the London or Kildean (Stirling) office for the majority of the working week.
Experience in a regulated environment such as financial services or insurance (Desirable).
Experience with eSourcing platforms such as Market Dojo, and with Power BI or similar analytical tools (Desirable).
Experience directing offshore or nearshore teams as an extension of the UK operation (Desirable).
CIPS or an equivalent professional qualification (Desirable).

Skills

Category management
Strategic sourcing
Negotiation
Commercial strategy
Supply market analysis
Vendor management
Cost reduction
Stakeholder influence
Financial analysis
Spend data analysis
Risk management
Contract negotiation
Power BI
eSourcing platforms

Location

London
Kildean (Stirling)

Work Type

Flexible working arrangements
Onsite (majority of the working week)

Experience Level

Senior

Education Level

CIPS or an equivalent professional qualification (Desirable)

Benefits

Pension scheme of up to 18%
Share Save and Share Incentive Plan
Financial wellbeing and support services
38 days annual leave (including bank holidays)
Opportunity to purchase up to five extra days of annual leave
Time Off When You Need It policy
Inspiring Families policy (comprehensive support and paid parental leave)
Private Healthcare
Critical Illness cover
Life Assurance
Additional family options for Health & Protection cover

About the Company

M&G's purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work.
Heritage dating back more than 175 years.
Long history of innovation in savings and investments.
Combines asset management and insurance expertise.
Offers a wide range of solutions through two distinct operating segments: Asset Management and Life.
Creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.
M&G Procurement is on a transformation journey.
Procurement objectives include identifying and delivering material, recurring cost reduction on M&G third-party spend and materially improving how the business experiences Procurement.
Procurement is moving from a business unit aligned, generalist model to a category structure that operates as an internal commercial consultancy.

Equal Opportunity

We strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture.
Welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.
Proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme.
Welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
Committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process.
All candidates have the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments when applying.