Strategic Buyer

 Join the Procurement Team based in Bristol as a Strategic Buyer and help us to achieve our mission of pioneering electric aviation.

We’re experiencing an exciting period of growth in our Procurement team as we continue toward our journey of making electric aviation history. We are looking for a new Strategic Buyer to assist with critical strategic contracting, ensuring delivery of tools, solutions and components for our Powertrain & Energy Storage team. You'll grow and forge various cross-functional relationships across the business as you develop and deploy a category management, best practice approach to procurement in the ongoing development of the VX4 aircraft.

What success will look like for you, as a Strategic Buyer?

You will conduct market assessments, helping us to identify potential new suppliers as well as manage new and existing supplier relationships, ensuring adherence to contractual KPIs, to secure on-time, cost, and quality products/services. We'll also need you to take ownership of the commercial negotiation and contracting process from RFI/RFP through to contract award.

This role will report directly to the Head of Procurement. This means that alongside your more dynamic responsibilities, you will need to own tasks at all levels such as the end-to-end PO process and ensuring information is accurate and up to date in our ERP system. We're an evolving business, so you'll have the opportunity to contribute to continuous improvement of our procurement processes and tools and play a key role in helping to develop future supplier ramp-up strategies.

You will be working closely with our expert internal teams across engineering, finance, and program, as well as key global external suppliers. You will need excellent communication, negotiation skills, attention to detail, and the ability to flex between essential operational tasks to strategic problem-solving to be successful in this role. You will work with and analyse data and insights to identify where there are potential risks in our supply chain and take the lead in finding required solutions. Global travel to the US, Asia and Europe is also an important part of the role, although you will have complete autonomy over the frequency of travel.

What would we like you to bring?

We want you to be successful in your role, to achieve this, you will need to have demonstrable procurement or supply chain experience within a safety-critical/highly regulated industry such as Aerospace, Automotive, Manufacturing, Nuclear, Healthcare or similar. You will need a strong track record of developing strategic relationships with your suppliers that have resulted in category growth and first-class contract management, negotiation, and data analysis skills. 

Knowledge of battery/energy storage systems would advantageous, but not essential. Additionally, you will hold either a BA/BSc degree or equivalent in a business-related field or CIPS qualification.

Our benefits

Our people matter - we're not going anywhere without them. Which is why our company benefits go beyond the essentials.

• 26 days holiday, plus bank holiday

• 5 extra days per year to buy (or sell)

• 5 extra days holiday when you get married or enter a civil partnership

• Additional 4% of your salary to spend on extra benefits

• Award-winning digital health and wellbeing service (Help@Hand)

• Company Share Scheme - open to every Vertical employee

• Company Pension Scheme - 5% and we match it

• Breakfast on us, every day

We may just be the hardest job you've ever had, but we're confident it will be the most rewarding. Join the team today and help us shape the future of Advanced Air Mobility.

Disclaimer Statement

We encourage you to apply even if you may not have all the experience listed in the advert. We recognise that talent comes in various forms and we are committed to providing opportunities that create an environment of growth, diversity, and inclusion for everyone. As part of our desire to review and make our processes fair, we may ask you questions related to these aspects during the application process. For more information on how we will use your data, see our Legal section.