Job Title: Senior Buyer
Location: Ashton Vale, Bristol + Hybrid Working Arrangements
Compensation: Competitive Salary + Benefits
Role Type: Full time / Permanent
Role ID: SF70162
Help Shape the Future of Defence Procurement
At Babcock, we’re working to create a safe and secure world, together. If you join us, you can play your part as a Senior Buyer at Ashton House, near Bristol.
Across defence, aerospace and engineering, our teams support vital national capabilities. We design, build and maintain assets that protect lives and strengthen global security. A career here means working on projects with real purpose where your contribution drives innovation, resilience and long‑term impact.
As a Senior Buyer, you’ll play an essential part in delivering procurement excellence across our Mission Systems business. This is an exciting opportunity to influence project success, shape supplier strategy and directly support the critical programmes that underpin national defence.
You’ll work within a high‑performing procurement team, taking responsibility for sourcing, contract management and supplier performance across a range of projects. You’ll also benefit from a career pathway that supports development, progression and professional growth.
Day-to-day, your work will make a real difference ensuring our teams can deliver innovative, reliable and high‑quality systems that support the UK’s capability across land, air, maritime and strategic operations.
- Lead procurement activity across key projects, ensuring goods and services are delivered on time and to the highest standards.
- Develop and implement sourcing strategies that support operational requirements and deliver long-term value.
- Run tendering, negotiation and supplier selection processes, ensuring best‑in‑class supply chain performance.
- Manage supplier relationships to drive quality, efficiency and continuous improvement.
- Partner with Project and Programme Leads, providing procurement insight that supports decision making and project success.
This role is full time, 37 hours per week and provides hybrid working arrangements with 3 days onsite and 2 days working from home.
Essential experience of the Senior Buyer
- Experience within a procurement or supply chain role, ideally within defence, engineering or manufacturing.
- Ability to build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
- Strong communication and negotiation skills.
- Ability to interpret technical information, such as engineering drawings.
- A proactive, self‑motivated approach to managing workload.
Qualifications for the Senior Buyer
Essential:
- A bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
Preferred:
- Membership of (or progression towards) a relevant professional body, such as the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (Level 5+).
Security Clearance
The successful candidate must be able to achieve and maintain Standard (BPSS) /Security Check (SC) security clearance for this role. Must be UK national.
Many of the positions within our company are subject to national security clearance and Trade Control restrictions. This means that your eligibility for certain roles may be affected by your place of birth, nationality, current or former citizenship, and any residency you hold or have held. Further details are available at United Kingdom Security Vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
What we offer
- Generous holiday allowance
- Matched contribution pension scheme, with life assurance
- Access to a Digital GP, annual health check and nutritional consultations through Aviva DigiCare+
- Employee share scheme
- Employee shopping savings portal
- Payment of professional fees
- Reservists in the armed forces receive 10‑days special paid leave
- Holiday Trading — buy or sell up to one working week of annual leave
- ‘Be Kind Day’ — paid leave to volunteer for a charity of your choice
- Flexible working to help balance work and life
- A dynamic working environment with opportunities to grow and progress
We’re Babcock — a global FTSE 100 organisation with over 26,000 people working together to make a difference.
Here, you’ll be part of something bigger. From initial design to final decommissioning, your work will contribute to products and services that are essential to national security and public infrastructure. Together, we’re building a future that lasts — not just through the impact we make, but through meaningful careers that respect your work-life balance.
We call that lifetime engineering.
Join us and see how far we can go, together.
We are a disability confident committed employer. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages, please email careers@babcockinternational.com with the subject header ‘Reasonable adjustments requirement’. We’re committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone’s free to thrive. We are happy to talk about flexible working – please ask about alternative patterns of work at interview.
Closing date: 20/03/2026
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