Senior Mechanical Buyer

Senior Mechanical Buyer £50-60K

Location: Buckinghamshire (4 days on-site)

About the Opportunity

Copello are recruiting for an experienced Senior Mechanical Buyer to join a leading engineering and manufacturing organisation. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced procurement professional to take ownership of strategic sourcing activities across high-value and business-critical commodity categories.

Working as part of an established Procurement team, you will develop and implement category strategies, manage key supplier relationships, drive commercial value, and support new product introduction programmes while ensuring supply chain resilience and operational excellence.

This position would suit someone with a strong background in strategic procurement within a complex engineering, manufacturing, aerospace, defence or similar regulated environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement long-term category strategies that deliver cost savings, improve quality, enhance delivery performance and reduce supply chain risk.
• Lead strategic sourcing activities across assigned commodity categories.
• Conduct supplier market analysis, benchmarking and supplier assessments to identify sourcing opportunities and supplier rationalisation initiatives.
• Manage the full tendering process including RFIs, RFQs and RFPs.
• Lead supplier negotiations, including pricing, commercial terms, framework agreements and long-term contracts.
• Manage end-to-end supply of assigned commodities, ensuring materials are available to support operational requirements.
• Work closely with internal stakeholders to ensure procurement strategies align with business objectives.
• Support new product introduction (NPI) activities through early supplier engagement and prototype sourcing.
• Monitor supplier performance against key metrics including quality, delivery, cost and responsiveness.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across the supplier base, identifying opportunities to improve productivity, reduce costs and enhance supplier performance.
• Manage purchase price variance (PPV) improvements across assigned categories.
• Ensure supplier risks are identified, managed and mitigated.
• Support contract management activities to ensure commercial compliance and supplier accountability.
• Work collaboratively with Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations and Supply Chain teams to support business objectives.

Skills & Experience

We're looking for candidates with:

• 5–7+ years' experience as a Senior Buyer, Commodity Buyer or Category Buyer.
• Proven experience managing strategic procurement categories within an engineering or manufacturing environment.
• Strong commercial negotiation skills, including contract and framework agreement negotiation.
• Experience developing and implementing category strategies.
• Excellent supplier relationship management skills.
• Strong analytical capability, including cost modelling and total cost of ownership analysis.
• Experience working within MRP/ERP environments.
• Knowledge of strategic sourcing methodologies and supplier performance management.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Desirable Experience

Experience within one or more of the following would be advantageous:

• Aerospace
• Defence
• High-value manufacturing
• PCB Assembly
• CNC Machining
• Injection or Compression Moulding

Professional qualifications such as CIPS , CPM , an MBA or a relevant degree in Supply Chain, Engineering or Business would also be beneficial.

Key Competencies

• Strategic sourcing and category management
• Supplier relationship management
• Contract management
• Commercial negotiation
• Supply chain optimisation
• Cost reduction and value engineering
• Continuous improvement
• Risk management
• Project management
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Commercial and financial awareness
• Resilience and problem solving

Success Measures

Success in this role will be measured through:

• Delivery of cost savings and productivity improvements
• Purchase Price Variance (PPV) reduction
• Successful execution of category strategies
• Supplier quality, delivery and performance improvements
• Supply chain risk reduction
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Successful contract management
• Continuous improvement initiatives
• Compliance with responsible sourcing and regulatory requirements

If you're an experienced procurement professional looking to join a business where you can influence sourcing strategy, build strong supplier partnerships and deliver measurable commercial value, we'd be pleased to hear from you.