Assistant Category Specialist

Assistant Category Specialist - People (Adult Social Care, Children's Services and Public Health) - Ref: RT04225

Grade: G7; Salary Range: £34,412 - £38,220

About our Procurement and Contract Management Team

We are pleased to share that following a review and restructure, Walsall Council has a number of new and exciting opportunities in its Procurement and Contract Management team. 

Our team support a wide range of service areas across the Council including services for Adult Social Care, Children's Service, Public Health, Construction, FM, Waste, Fleet, Finance, HR, and ICT to name a few. 

With significant changes in public sector procurement with the UK's Procurement Act 2023 (PA23) coming into force, bringing with it the challenges of a major overhaul of the procurement and contract management rules, and a heightened focus on transparency, integrity and commerciality, this is an ideal time to join our established team and positively impact change. 

About our Assistant Category Specialist 

We are seeking a commercially minded positive individual with a 'can do' attitude to work collaboratively with stakeholders to successfully deliver a range of procurement activities. Ideally, you will: 

• be flexible and pragmatic in your approach

• have the ability to manage multiple workstreams across your category area at different stages of the procurement cycle. 

• work with a variety of teams planning and defining services and ensuring procurement projects meet local objectives to support the Council's corporate vision of delivering excellent services and improving life chances for all Walsall residents. 

About the People Category 

Our People Category has four fantastic opportunities available for two Category Specialist roles and two Assistant Category Specialist to strengthen our capacity to deliver a wide range of procurement activity.

We work in close collaboration with many key internal and external stakeholders that include Council wide service areas, vulnerable service users, providers, VCSEs and of course, our valued supply chain. 

We are not afraid to think outside the box and challenge the 'norm', we pride ourselves on our flexible and pragmatic procurement advice to achieve the most advantageous procurement strategy, and to ensure successful project delivery.

Our projects vary in value and complexity with sometimes challenging timescales. Examples of recent and current/future projects include: 

• Healthy Child Programme circa £6M annually (lifetime value £60M) – Provider Selection Regime
• Integrated Sexual Health Services circa £2M annually (lifetime value £20M) – Provider Selection Regime
• Community Based Support Services circa £28M annually (lifetime value £224M) – PA23 Light Touch Framework
• Support Living Services circa £20M annually (lifetime value £160M) – PA23 Light Touch Framework
• Residential and Nursing Care Services circa £54M annually – PA23 User Choice 
• Home to School Transport circa £10M+ annually – PCRs 2015 DPS
• Healthy Eating for Families and Children circa £250k annually (lifetime value £1.25M) – PCRs 2015 Open Process

If you want to be supported by passionate and dedicated Category Managers and Category Lead, believe you could add value to our team and you have relevant category knowledge, or the desire to learn, then we would like to hear from you. 

Closing Date: 7th December 2025

View: Job Description and Employee Specification

It is our intention to notify applicants of their outcome at the earliest opportunity after the closing date, subject to the volume of interest and to interview short listed applicants during week commencing 5th and 12th January 2026. 

If you have any questions or wish to discuss any of the opportunities available, please contact Susan Wilson, Category Lead for People at  

This post is covered by the Government's Code of Practice on the English Language Fluency Duty for public sector workers.  The post holder will be required to communicate verbally with customers and provide advice and/or information in accurate spoken English.

Information for Applicants

Important note: When completing your online application form, you will be asked to enter supporting information. You must enter a detailed supporting information statement describing how your skills, abilities and experience meet the specific criteria included in the employee specification. If you do not include a supporting information statement, you will not be shortlisted. Please also ensure that you complete the work history and qualifications sections of your application form. Please do not add a CV as we do not accept them.  See our Information for Applicants leaflet for further information.

We kindly request that recruitment agencies do not contact us regarding this job vacancy. We are not accepting Agency applications or referrals at this time