Jobs in Knutsford

Strategic Sourcing Lead
East Cheshire area
£75,000 - £90,000
Strategic Sourcing, Machined Components & China Supply Chain
Travel: Office based with occasional international travel, particularly to China
Reporting to: Director
Technical Requirement: Mechanical engineering background essential
About Oliver Valves
The company is a highly successful, privately owned UK engineering group with a global reputation for designing and manufacturing high-quality engineering solutions for critical applications.
The group includes several specialist divisions and they support a wide range of applications, from smaller equipment to larger, more bespoke items.
The company is continuing to grow its international presence and currently operates across 80 countries worldwide, works with a large number of global distributors, and has a manufacturing facility in the Far East. The business is highly profitable, has no bank debt, and has built long-standing relationships with major global companies.
The organisation also benefits from strong internal infrastructure and a dedicated research and development function.
The Opportunity
We are looking to appoint a commercially focused and technically credible Strategic Sourcing Lead to strengthen the global supply chain and improve purchasing performance across a major spend area.
This is a high-impact role with significant visibility across the business. The successful candidate will take ownership of a substantial spend across machined parts and engineered components, helping the company reduce cost, improve supplier delivery performance and become even more competitive in the market.
The role will be particularly focused on developing and improving the supply chain across China and India, while working closely with UK-based engineering, quality, production and senior leadership teams.
This is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious senior purchasing or procurement professional who wants to make a visible contribution in a profitable, growing and highly respected engineering business.
Role Purpose
The Strategic Sourcing Lead will be responsible for improving the commercial performance, resilience and delivery reliability of the machined-parts supply chain.
The main purpose of the role is to reduce cost, improve lead times, strengthen supplier performance and ensure the business has access to a reliable, scalable and cost-effective supplier base.
You will be expected to review existing purchasing activity in detail, identify opportunities for savings and supplier improvement, and ensure that cost reduction is achieved without compromising product quality or technical standards.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Purchasing and Spend Management
* Take ownership of a significant spend across machined parts, engineered components and related mechanical commodities.
* They will develop and implement sourcing strategies that reduce total cost of acquisition, improve supplier reliability and support the continued growth of the business.
* This will include reviewing current purchasing activity, identifying areas of excess cost, challenging supplier pricing and introducing stronger commercial discipline across supplier negotiations, RFQs, long-term agreements and purchasing processes.
* The role will also involve benchmarking supplier pricing and capability across the UK, Europe, China and India.
* This is a lone role and will not have any team management responsibility.
Machined Parts and Technical Procurement:
A strong understanding of mechanical engineering and machined components is essential.
Understand how machined parts are produced, what drives cost, where quality risks may arise, and how to challenge suppliers credibly.
Work closely with engineering, production, quality and supplier development colleagues to ensure suppliers can meet technical specifications, tolerances, material requirements, documentation standards and delivery expectations.
The role will also involve identifying opportunities for value engineering, design-for-manufacture improvements, supplier consolidation and specification challenge where appropriate.
China, India and Global Supplier Development:
* A major focus of the role will be the development of a stronger and more scalable supply chain across China and India.
* Responsible for identifying, assessing and developing high-performing third-party machine shops and engineered component suppliers.
* Review existing suppliers for capability, cost, capacity, quality risk and delivery performance, while also identifying new suppliers where the current supply base is too expensive, too slow or not sufficiently resilient.
* The role will require close working with overseas suppliers and may involve international travel, particularly to China, to assess capability, build relationships and resolve performance issues.
Lead Time and Supplier Performance Improvement
One of the key challenges for the business is late supplier delivery, particularly from suppliers based in China and India.
You will be expected to address these lead-time and delivery issues by improving supplier management, communication, forecasting, escalation and accountability.
They will help introduce or improve supplier performance measures covering on-time delivery, lead times, responsiveness, quality, cost and issue resolution.
The role will also involve working closely with production planning and operations to ensure purchasing activity supports build programmes across the company’s UK and overseas manufacturing facilities.
Cost Reduction and Commercial Improvement
* Deliver measurable cost savings across machined components and engineered parts.
* They will negotiate improved pricing, payment terms, lead times, minimum order quantities, rebate structures and long-term supply arrangements.
* The role requires someone who can think beyond simple purchase price and consider total cost, including freight, duty, working capital, inventory, scrap, rework, lead-time risk and supplier reliability.
* A key measure of success will be the candidate’s ability to improve margin and support more competitive pricing in the market, while maintaining Oliver Valves’ reputation for quality and reliability.
Cross-Functional Working
This role will work closely with the Director, engineering, quality, production, R&D and senior leadership.
Act as the bridge between commercial negotiation and technical execution, ensuring that supplier decisions are commercially sound, technically robust and operationally practical.
Comfortable influencing stakeholders at all levels and providing clear updates on savings, risks, supplier issues, delivery performance and sourcing opportunities.
Candidate Specification
* You will be an experienced purchasing, procurement or strategic sourcing professional with a strong background in mechanical engineering or technical manufacturing.
* You must be commercially sharp, technically credible and comfortable working with machined parts, engineering drawings, machine shops and complex supplier networks.
Essential Experience and Skills
The successful candidate should have:
Senior purchasing, procurement or strategic sourcing experience within mechanical engineering, precision manufacturing or complex engineered products.
Strong experience with machined parts, CNC machining, machine shops and engineered components.
A proven track record of reducing cost across complex technical spend.
Experience sourcing from, or managing suppliers in, China, India, Europe or other international supplier markets.
A strong understanding of supplier capability, manufacturing cost drivers, lead times and quality risks.
Experience improving supplier delivery performance, particularly on-time delivery and lead-time reliability.
Strong negotiation skills and the ability to challenge suppliers constructively.
Confidence working with engineering drawings, specifications and technical stakeholders.
Good ERP, MRP or purchasing systems experience.
The ability to use purchasing data and supplier performance information to make better commercial decisions.
The ability to work from Knutsford and travel internationally when required.
Mechanical Engineering Background
A mechanical engineering background is essential for this role.
This could have been gained through a degree, HNC, HND, apprenticeship, time-served engineering route, production engineering experience, manufacturing engineering experience or a procurement career built within technically complex mechanical manufacturing environments.
The key requirement is that the candidate understands how machined parts are made, what they should cost, where supplier risks can appear, and how to have credible technical conversations with suppliers and internal engineering teams.
Personal Qualities
The role would suit someone who is practical, commercial and ambitious.
You are likely to be someone who enjoys getting into the detail, understands how things are made and is motivated by delivering visible improvements.
They should be confident enough to challenge suppliers and internal stakeholders, but also able to build strong, long-term relationships.
The ideal person will be:
* Commercially focused and cost conscious.
* Technically curious and confident around engineering discussions.
* Practical, hands-on and detail orientated.
* A strong negotiator with a constructive style.
* Energetic, enthusiastic and ambitious.
* Comfortable working in an entrepreneurial, owner-led engineering business.
* Able to work at pace and make decisions.
* Focused on results, but unwilling to compromise quality.
Key Measures of Success:
Success in the role will be measured by the candidate’s ability to:
Deliver measurable cost savings across machined parts and engineered components.
Improve supplier on-time delivery performance.
Reduce lead times across key part families.
Strengthen the supplier base in China, India and other relevant markets.
Improve supplier accountability and performance management.
Support better component availability for assembly and test operations.
Reduce supply chain disruption and production delays.
Improve margin and support more competitive market pricing.
Maintain product quality while improving cost and delivery performance.
Get in touch
This is your opportunity to shape the strategy and massively impact the whole business – apply your knowledge of what good looks like and really make it your own.
I will be reviewing all applications and shortlisting successful applications for and initial screening call where we will discuss the role, business and your experience in more detail.
Don’t hesitate to get on touch, apply below and I will be in touch to arrange the initial conversation.
Neil