About this role
Closing Date
2026-01-22Job Title: Category & Sourcing Manager (HR & Corporate Services)
Location: Durrington (Worthing)
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: Full Time (Hybrid – 2 days in office), flexible working will be considered
Salary: £55,000
About the role
You will join our Procurement team, focusing on HR and People-related spend categories. This is a fantastic opportunity to take ownership of a broad and strategically important portfolio, covering recruitment services, benefits, occupational health, salary sacrifice schemes, subscriptions, and other HR-aligned third-party spend.
This role has opened up due to an increase in workload.
What you will be responsible for:
You will play a key role in shaping category strategies, advising senior stakeholders, and ensuring our HR procurement activity aligns with regulatory requirements, business needs, and market best practice. Typically, you will manage a varied pipeline of 4–5 concurrent projects, ranging from one-off tenders to longer-term strategic sourcing initiatives.
- Developing and delivering HR category strategies, including market analysis, sourcing options, and long-term planning.
- Leading tenders and sourcing activity across HR spend areas such as recruitment, benefits, occupational health, and salary sacrifice schemes.
- Managing procurement for corporate services including legal support, consultancy, and other enabling activities.
- Ensuring compliance with public procurement regulations (including PA23) and internal governance.
- Driving value creation, cost optimisation, and commercial insight across the full sourcing lifecycle.
- Providing strategic advice to HR and senior leadership teams, helping them make informed commercial decisions.
- Collaborating with multidisciplinary teams including HR, Finance, Legal, Digital, and external partners.
- Supporting the development of category strategies across the wider procurement function.
- Managing stakeholder expectations at all levels, including director-level engagement.
What you’ll bring to the role:
Essential
- Strong HR category management experience
- Experience running end-to-end tenders and managing multiple concurrent projects.
- Understanding of public procurement regulations and confidence in applying them.
- Strategic thinking, with the ability to analyse markets, challenge assumptions, and propose well-reasoned solutions.
- Ability to build strong relationships and influence senior stakeholders.
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, reactive environment while keeping long-term goals in sight.
- Ability to work autonomously and bring expertise to the team.
Desirable
- CIPS qualification (or working towards it).
- Experience in utilities or engineering.
- Experience working in a regulated industry
About Southern Water:
Southern Water is at the forefront of transforming Britain’s water industry, investing significantly to enhance resilience, sustainability, and service excellence. With £7.8bn planned investment for 2025–30, this is an unparalleled opportunity to join a business committed to delivering a generational shift in the way water services are managed.
You will be joining at a time of significant change, working alongside a highly skilled leadership team with a clear vision for the future. We offer an environment where senior professionals can make a meaningful impact, influence major strategic decisions, and drive long-term value creation.
Inclusive & Empowering
At Southern Water, we believe diverse perspectives drive innovation. If you’re passionate about making a positive impact and think you can bring value to our team, we’d love to hear from you—even if you don’t tick every box. Your unique skills and experiences could be exactly what we need.
If this role isn’t quite what you’re looking for but are keen to be contacted about opportunities at Southern Water, you can register your details here: https://wd3.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recruiting/southernwater/SouthernWater/introduceYourself
Our Commitment to Diversity
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. We do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other protected characteristic. If you need reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.
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Other facts
About Southern Water
We are one of the largest water and wastewater companies in the South East of England and thrive on the passion and hard work of more than 2,000 employees.
Together we supply 532 million litres of drinking water every day to more than two million customers and treat and recycle 717 million litres of wastewater for more than four million customers in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Water is essential to every aspect of our lives and we're proud to be at the heart of managing water and wastewater services. We drink it, cook with it and use it to clean. Our water supply faces big challenges - the population of the South East is growing fast, and climate change is bringing greater risk of droughts and more extreme weather. It’s a future of more people needing water and wastewater services, with less water to go around.
So, together with our customers and communities, we aim to provide a sustainable, high-quality water and wastewater service that helps us create a resilient future for water in the South East.
Find out more about us:
Website: www.southernwater.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SouthernWater
Twitter: @SouthernWater
Instagram: @southernwatermedia
We use market research tools to improve our service. For more info, visit: https://www.southernwater.co.uk/our-customers/privacy
What you'll do
- You will shape category strategies and manage procurement activities related to HR and corporate services. This includes leading tenders, ensuring compliance with regulations, and providing strategic advice to senior leadership.
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