UK Research & Innovation
Salary: £37,841 per annum, plus £2,500 Specialist Allowance if MCIPS qualified
Band: UKRI Band D
Contract Type: Open ended
Hours: Full-time (Flexible working available)
Location: Harwell Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire – Hybrid working available (Min 2 days per week in the office)
Closing Date: 18th June 2026
Interviews: Week commencing 6th July 2026
Job Overview:
UK Research & Innovation has a mission to build a thriving, inclusive research and innovation system that connects discovery to prosperity and public good. An important part of this mission is procuring the goods, services, and partners critical to achieving these aims. If you are interested in contributing and helping to shape the UK’s world class research and innovation system to benefit lives, then UKRI has an exciting opportunity for a procurement professional to join the team supporting UKRI in all its procurement activities!
As a Procurement Officer, you will be joining an established, supportive team and will be involved in a wide variety of projects ranging from Research & Development, Professional Services, and Data and Technology. You will have the opportunity to shape commercial strategy, develop your own skills & experience, and contribute to projects that may have wide-ranging positive impacts for all.
UKRI buys a wide variety of complex and sometimes unique products and services including equipment, professional services and infrastructure to support a range of end-users. The UKRI Commercial Function provides a range of commercial support to the whole organisation. The majority of its effort is focussed on the management of the whole procurement cycle including planning, sourcing and contract management in a compliant manner while providing value for money.
About the role
UKRI are recruiting a Procurement Officer based at Harwell, Oxfordshire. This role is supporting world class cutting-edge scientific research at the UK’s leading research campus.
Key Responsibilities:
Procurement Officer, working with and reporting to Procurement Managers, support research staff on all their complex procurement projects. Procurement Officers play a key part in ensuring that procurements are run in the correct manner and that our organisation obtains maximum benefit.
This Procurement Officer role will add to the wider, decentralised UKRI team. The role will be responsible to:
- Draft and Publish Tender Documents compliant with UK Public Sector Procurement Regulations.
- Maintaining Contract folders in a regulated environment with clear audit trail.
- Undertake multiple procurement sourcing/contracting actions as required using the most appropriate route to market in line with UKRI Procurement Policy.
- Provide advice when requirement must be directed to the shared service centre.
- Support Procurement Managers in Tender Evaluation Moderation Meetings.
- Provide local expertise and support to end-users to undertake a range of procurement tasks (varying in both value and complexity) including sourcing and contracting.
Personal Specification
The below criteria will be scored during Shortlisting (S), Interview (I) or both (S&I).
Qualifications
• MCIPS Qualified or relevant experience or willingness to work towards MCIPS (S).
Essential
• Experience of working in a commercial role in an organisation in a regulated environment, working to standard operating procedures (S).
• Experience of using IT systems in a commercial role (S).
• Experience of updating and keeping organised records (S&I).
• Clear written English for accurately drafting contracts (S).
• Understand the context and meaning of terms and conditions (S).
• Be customer focused, able to deal with key stakeholder questions and queries (S&I).
• Willingness to adopt new practices in a changing regulatory environment (I).
• Accountable and forthcoming in communication to solve problems as a team (I).
Benefits
We recognise and value our employees as individuals and aim to provide a favourable pay and rewards package. We are committed to supporting employees' development and promote a culture of continuous learning.
A list of benefits below:
• An outstanding defined benefit pension scheme
• 30 days annual leave in addition to 10.5 public and privilege days
• Employee discounts and offers on retail and leisure activities
• Employee assistance programme, providing confidential help and advice
• Flexible working options
Plus, many more benefits and wellbeing initiatives that enable our employees to have a great work life balance.
For further information on our benefits please see:
Benefits of working at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Please apply online, if you experience any issue applying, please contact [email protected]
Please note, if you will require sponsorship to work in the UK, as part of your sponsorship application, you and any dependants travelling with you, will be required to pay costs directly to The Home Office for the application before you start your role with us. UKRI is normally able to reimburse some, or all of these fees after you have become an employee and this can be discussed with the Hiring Manager. For more information, please visit https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/how-much-it-costs or contact [email protected] .
