Director of Procurement and Contracting | Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust


Company:	Southend University Hospital NHS Trust
Salary:	£112,782 - £129,783 Per Annum (Pro Rata for Part Time)
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Southend-on-Sea, SS2 6GD
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	24 Aug 2026
Closing date:	24 Sept 2026

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Summary

Here is an exciting opportunity for you to join us as a Director of Procurement and Contracting. This is a senior position that will require finely tuned business skills to deal with the many challenges faced by this new role in support of MSE group and external customers.

The principal role of the Director will be to provide leadership, commercial insight, and stakeholder interface in order to grow the new procurement service. It is envisaged that revised organisation will not only provide services to MSE Group but will be position MSE at the heart of the region, providing procurement services to others and support the drive for regional cross working.

As a consequence, it is essential that the Servi ce is cost effective and remains closely aligned to the business priorities and requirements of not only MSE but also potential Partner organisations. Not only will the service need to deliver traditional support in areas such as cost improvement, but it will also seek to drive new opportunities from leveraging commercial insight strategic partnerships. These will help to deliver long term benefits to the system.

The Director will ensure that the expenditure are each Partner complies with all statutory and mandatory regulations governing procurement rules within the NHS, including the Trust’s own Standing Financial Instructions along with mandatory procurement legislation.

• You are expected to influence all third party spend within the Trust to ensure value for money. This will also include providing procurement expertise to support areas traditionally out of scope such as Pharmacy drug expenditure.

• An important and significant aspect of this role is to build and maintain enduring, effective and business-like working relations with suppliers, consultants, clinicians and senior managers across the group so that customer service levels are set and maintained along with contributing to challenging year on year cost improvement programmes.

• The Director will be responsible for providing a proactive procurement service to the Care Group or Corporate Division(s), leading a management team of senior procurement experts to deliver both strategic advice and operational support.

• Be recognised a professional procurement lead for the Trust on high profile, high risk procurements. To lead on negotiations of complex, high value contracts for the procurement of capital and consumable items.

• Drive the development, management and delivery of the Trust’s procurement cost improvement program, operational metrics and corporate reporting.

• Responsible for the implementation and development Category and Contract Management in the new procurement service.

• Ensure that the Department operates within set budget

Our ambition is to deliver excellent local and specialist services, to improve the health and well being of our patients, and provide a vibrant place for staff to develop, innovate and build careers.

We aim to make the most of our skills and experiences so we can become the best we can be. As one organisation we will recruit the finest and retain more specialist staff due to more employment opportunities across our Trust.

Are you looking for an exciting role using your unique qualities, then we want to hear from you.

For full details about this varied and rewarding role, please see attached job description.

We look forward to your application.

This advert closes on Monday 7 Sep 2026

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