We are looking for a highly organised, commercially-minded Purchasing Coordinator to join our busy team.
This is a fast-paced role at the heart of our order fulfilment operation. You will be responsible for processing and managing customer sales orders, sourcing materials, negotiating competitive rates and working closely with suppliers to ensure orders are fulfilled accurately, profitably and within agreed delivery timescales.
This is more than an order-processing position. We are looking for someone who will take ownership, spot potential problems early and actively find solutions. You will need to be comfortable managing a high volume of orders in a timely way while balancing margin, cost, availability, supplier performance and customer service.
Key Responsibilities
- Process and manage sales orders accurately from receipt through to successful fulfilment.
- Take end-to-end ownership of allocated orders, ensuring they continue to progress after being placed with a supplier.
- Source materials and negotiate competitive pricing, carriage rates and delivery terms.
- Maintain a strong focus on purchasing margin and profitability when making buying decisions.
- Build and maintain strong, productive relationships with existing and new suppliers.
- Communicate confidently and professionally with customers, suppliers and colleagues by telephone and email.
- Provide proactive updates regarding delivery dates, product availability, substitutions, delays and other issues.
- Work closely with sales and customer service colleagues to ensure customers receive accurate and timely information.
- Proactively identify orders at risk due to stock shortages, supplier delays, pricing discrepancies or missing confirmations and take action before they impact the customer.
- Chase outstanding supplier confirmations and delivery dates with persistence and urgency.
- Identify alternative suppliers, products or fulfilment options where the original solution is no longer viable.
- Check supplier pricing, carriage charges and order confirmations against agreed rates and challenge discrepancies.
- Consider supplier reliability, availability, lead times and service levels alongside purchase price when deciding where to place orders.
- Take ownership of problems through to resolution, coordinating between suppliers, customers and internal teams where necessary.
- Escalate significant issues appropriately rather than allowing orders to drift or deadlines to be missed.
- Manage and prioritise a high daily volume of orders without compromising accuracy or attention to detail.
- Identify recurring supplier, product or process issues and contribute ideas to improve efficiency and customer experience.
- Work towards individual and departmental performance targets.
- Help ensure orders are fulfilled right first time, minimising mistakes, credits, delays and customer disruption.
What We're Looking For
We are looking for someone who combines accuracy with pace and enjoys working in a busy environment.
You will be comfortable making decisions, negotiating with suppliers and taking responsibility for getting things done. Someone who naturally takes ownership. If something isn't working, we want someone who will actively look for the next solution rather than simply waiting for a response.
The ideal candidate will understand that securing the lowest price isn't always the same as making the best purchasing decision. You'll be able to balance price and margin with availability, supplier reliability, delivery performance and the impact on the customer.
If you are commercially minded, highly organised, good with numbers and enjoy working in a fast-moving environment where your decisions make a genuine difference to customer experience and business performance, we'd love to hear from you.
Essential Skills & Attributes
- Strong numerical ability and confidence working with costs, selling prices and margins.
- Excellent attention to detail and a high level of accuracy.
- Ability to manage and prioritise a high-volume workload.
- Commercially aware and naturally margin-focused.
- Confident negotiator with sound commercial judgement.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Confident communicating with customers, suppliers and colleagues.
- Strong organisational and time-management skills.
- Ability to build effective, long-term supplier relationships.
- Persistent and proactive – comfortable chasing suppliers, negotiating alternatives and taking ownership until a solution is found.
- Able to identify potential problems and act before they become bigger issues.
- Resilient and able to remain accurate, professional and solution-focused during busy periods.
- Able to distinguish between routine tasks and genuinely urgent issues.
- Comfortable working to deadlines and measurable performance targets.
- Confident using computer-based order management and purchasing systems.
- A strong team player who contributes to shared departmental objectives.
Desirable Experience
Previous experience within purchasing, procurement, order processing, merchanting, sales administration or a similar commercial role would be advantageous.
Knowledge of construction and building materials, such as timber, sheet materials, insulation, plasterboard and associated products, would be particularly useful but is not essential. Product knowledge can be developed in the role.
How Success Will Be Measured
Success within the Purchasing Coordinator role will be measured across several key areas, including:
- Order fulfilment within agreed delivery lead times.
- Purchasing margin and commercial performance.
- Right-first-time order accuracy.
- Effective management of outstanding and at-risk orders.
- Supplier pricing, reliability and service performance.
- Clear and proactive communication.
- Contribution towards overall team and departmental targets.
Benefits
We want to create a working environment where people feel valued, supported and rewarded for the contribution they make. Benefits include:
- Enhanced annual leave allowance – offering greater holiday entitlement than the standard statutory allowance.
- Monthly team bonus scheme – the opportunity to earn additional monthly bonuses based on team and business performance.
- Annual working-from-home allowance – providing flexibility to work from home for an agreed number of days each year.
- Supportive team environment – you'll be part of a collaborative team where colleagues work together, share responsibility and support each other during busy periods.
- A permanent, full-time position within a growing business.
- The opportunity to develop your commercial, purchasing and negotiation skills.
- A role where your performance and ideas can have a direct impact on how we operate and grow.
Pay: £32,000.00 per year
Application question(s):
- What attracted you to the role?
- Why do you consider yourself a suitable candidate for this role?
Work Location: In person
