Commercial and Procurement Officer

The Person Specification in the Job Description will be used for the purpose of shortlisting applicants. If you intend to apply for any of these positions, please refer to the criteria in the Person Specification and demonstrate how you meet these requirements from your work experience, including any voluntary work or internship, as well as through any formal or informal training undertaken.

This role offers you the opportunity to earn a salary and obtain a nationally recognised CIPS level 4 qualification, whilst gaining valuable skills and experience working within the Commercial and Procurement Team.  More information on the CIPS level 4 qualification can be found here:

https://www.cips.org/study-centres/apprenticeships/end-point-assessment/commercial-procurement-apprenticeship

This is a career graded (apprenticeship).  It is expected you will be appointed at KR8 and move to KR9 once apprenticeship training completed.

Exciting changes are afoot at the Kent County Council. We have recently formed a new Commercial and Procurement Division, which will be driven by its mission to ensure the Council is delivering ‘best value’ for residents across £1.2b of contracted spend. By ‘best value’, we mean much more than value for money and delivering savings. We are committed to delivering wider social, environmental, and economic benefits to Kent communities and supporting the Kent economy.

We are looking for ambitious and motivated professionals to join our new Division as Commercial and Procurement Officers in the People category, which covers Adult Social Care, Childrens and Young Persons, Integrated Health including Public Health and Families, Communities and Education services. The People category accounts for over £825m spend under management and Commercial and Procurement staff within this team, work to support commissioning colleagues working in a dynamic, but challenging market, where no two days are the same.

As a Commercial and Procurement Officer, you will be responsible for providing support to Senior Commercial and Procurement Officers and Commercial and Procurement Mangers within the category, to ensure that procurement projects are successfully undertaken.

The focus of the role will be to support the People Category team by ensuring that procurement initiation documents are completed, procurement pipeline is updated and maintained, support with the planning of market engagement events, the collation of tender documents, coordination of tender evaluation exercises and as part of the career development process, take responsibility for managing low value tenders, under supervision.

To join us, you will have one of the following:

-Previous commercial or procurement experience in the private or public sector, is preferred, but not essential. A desire to pursue a career in within a commercial and procurement setting is most important.

-Project management aptitude, with the ability to prioritise, work towards deadlines and  the confidence to work with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

-Have recently graduated University looking to start a career in commercial and procurement.

You will have an excellent work ethic, be organised and able to support on multiple projects. You will have excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate effectively and build relationships with internal stakeholders and suppliers. You will have the ability to research, analyse and interpret data/information to support development of procurement plans and category strategies. In this role, each day will offer a chance to build on your experience and skills which will help shape the future of Kent.

This post is considered by KCC to be a customer-facing position. The Council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act (2016) to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the Job Description/Person Specification.

The Kent County Council is a fully inclusive Employer, and we take our values and behaviours very seriously and are looking for employees who are equally passionate about the right values and behaviours.