Location
London

Hours
Full Time

Salary
Competitive, commensurate with experience

About the Role
The Financial Times (FT) is a globally recognised news organisation known for its authority, integrity and accuracy. At the FT, curiosity thrives and ambitious thinking is rewarded, offering you the chance to reach millions and create impactful work in an impartial journalism environment. Joining the FT means becoming part of a warm, collaborative culture that supports your growth, career aspirations and wellbeing.

The Procurement function operates group-wide within the Global Finance team, delivering transparent and effective procurement across the FT Group. This role will contribute to evolving Procurement by leveraging collective buying power through coordinated sourcing strategies, preferred supplier frameworks and group-wide commercial negotiations.

Based in London, the Procurement Manager will lead procurement activities across priority business areas including the Commercial Client Group (CCG), Product & Technology (P&T), and Reader Revenue Group (RRG). The role focuses on marketing and professional services procurement, managing agencies and consultancy providers in creative, media, social media and digital marketing. Experience with events-related procurement such as venues, hotels, AV and production services is advantageous.

The successful candidate will combine strong sourcing and commercial skills with excellent stakeholder engagement, partnering with senior leaders to deliver commercially robust and strategically aligned procurement outcomes. A forward-thinking, commercially curious mindset and comfort with technology and AI-enabled tools to enhance procurement efficiency are essential.

Key Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end procurement across assigned categories and business areas including sourcing strategy, RFP execution, supplier evaluation and negotiations
- Partner with stakeholders across RRG, CCG and P&T to support diverse procurement needs
- Build trusted relationships with stakeholders up to Director level, influencing decision-making
- Develop and execute sourcing strategies to optimise total cost of ownership and deliver sustainable value
- Challenge and shape business requirements to align with group priorities and procurement best practices
- Manage contract lifecycle including renewals, renegotiations and risk mitigation
- Apply supplier management frameworks and support governance and performance activities
- Collaborate with Finance to identify, track and validate savings and value delivery
- Use Coupa to manage sourcing and contracting, supporting stakeholders and suppliers
- Conduct market research and supplier analysis to inform sourcing and negotiation
- Support continuous improvement across procurement processes, governance and reporting

Experience
- Proven procurement experience in marketing, professional services and/or indirect spend categories
- Strong experience sourcing and managing marketing agencies, consultancy providers or related suppliers
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex sourcing activities and commercial negotiations
- Excellent stakeholder management and business partnering skills with senior stakeholders
- Strong analytical and commercial acumen to interpret spend data and market insights
- Experience handling contract negotiations, supplier management and procurement governance
- Comfortable managing competing priorities across multiple business areas
- Experience using procurement systems such as Coupa or similar platforms
- Interest in procurement innovation and emerging technologies including AI-enabled tools

About you
- Commercially curious and forward-thinking
- Strong communication and presentation skills, able to translate complex information clearly
- Collaborative and able to build trusted relationships at all levels
- Adaptable to a dynamic, matrixed environment

Desirable Experience
- Supporting procurement for events-related categories including venues, hotels, AV and production services
- Exposure to technology, SaaS or data supplier procurement
- Experience working within a matrixed or global organisation
- Familiarity with procurement transformation, Procure-to-Pay (P2P) processes or procurement analytics initiatives