Graduate Trainee Buyer

**Changing the way people think about waste.**

At Biffa, we love working with waste. Whether we’re turning it into sustainable power, finding new ways to recycle it or simply keeping it off the streets, we believe every day is an opportunity to improve the lives of millions. It’s a view that’s shared by our 10,000+ people around the country, who trust us to provide them with a career that’s always rewarding, often challenging, but never dull. And it’s why we’re the UK’s No. 1 choice for business waste management.

**A quick look at the role.**

As part of the Procurement Transformation Programme Biffa is realigning its procurement operations to reflect best corporate practice and improve service delivery. The **Graduate Buyer's** role is to support the Category Manager in strategic procurement projects whilst having responsibility, end to end, for tactical projects within your area of specialty. You will ensure that the function is professionally represented both internally and externally and striving to deliver a best-in-class service.

**Why it's an opportunity not to be wasted**
- Develop knowledge of a specific sub-category, segment, and market, including Biffa's products, services, and strategy
- Understand the supply market including, who the major players are, understanding of key supplier strengths and weaknesses, including social value impact, cost structures within the category, typical margins, what the major costs are for suppliers
- Identify sources of market intelligence and examine market dynamics
- Determine cost drivers for purchased materials, constructing cost or supply/ demand models for your market.
- Monitor market changes that may affect the supply and demand of products/services and communicate this effectively to relevant parties
- Analyse segments against sourcing and business needs, identifying new segments worth investigating
- Inputting into development of sourcing strategy - analyse trade-offs between options, risk analysis etc
- Creating robust commercial contracts using Biffa GTCs that protect Biffa against risk and deliver advantage to the business
- Interpreting P&L statements and business accounts
- Draw conclusions from data and make recommendations to the business/ stakeholders through competent business cases
- Understand the impact procurement has on the business and able to work with finance and operational stakeholders to realise expected benefits.
- Build and maintaining effective and supplier relationships to assure successful business performance
- Identify and establishing strong working relationships with key internal stakeholders to agree effective procurement support and resources aligned to divisional strategy and plans

**Requirements**:

- **2.1 or higher degree plus A to C grades at A-Level**:

- Some experience of building and maintaining customer relationships
- Commercial focused and numbers driven
- Local geographical knowledge
- Ability to communicate confidently and articulately with stakeholders at all levels
- Well organised with excellent attention to detail
- Confidentiality and absolute discretion is paramount to this role
- Able to produce high quality written correspondence and reports
- Strong time management with the ability to prioritse effectively
- Analytical and able to quickly assess issues and recommend and/or implement solutions
- Robust and resilient with the ability to absorb pressure and respond positively

**Benefits**

**And here’s why you’ll love it at Biffa.**
- Competitive salary
- Ongoing career development, training and coaching - because if you don’t grow, we don’t grow.
- Generous pension scheme.
- Medical and dental scheme.
- Retail and leisure discounts.
- Holiday and travel discounts.
- Bike to work scheme


**Dedicated to diversity.**

At Biffa we believe different ideas, perspective and backgrounds are key to developing a creative working environment that delivers real results. It’s why you’ll find us championing diversity and equality at every turn.