{"id":3191785,"url":"https://alion.io/job/hc-one-senior-buyer","title":"Senior Buyer","company":{"id":3055972,"name":"HC-One","domain":"hc-one.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/hc-one","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Eploy","truth_index":null},"role":"Operations","role_family":"Operations","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Darlington, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":55000,"max_usd":95000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":81},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-23T03:30:58Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-24","last_verified_at":"2026-11-03T14:53:07Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":11,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":11},"description":"About the role\nThe Senior Buyer is a development role for an experienced buyer looking to move into category management. Working across HC-One’s 146 care homes, the postholder supports the Environmental Hygiene & IPC and People, Brand & Office Services categories, with combined annual spend of about £15m. Within these, the Senior Buyer takes ownership of smaller sub-categories and selected higher-value contracts, managing them from sourcing and tender through to award, mobilisation and ongoing supplier performance. Reporting to the Head of Procurement and working closely with the Senior Procurement Manager, the Senior Buyer also contributes to category strategy, supplier negotiations and spend analysis. The role offers structured exposure to category management, with the scope of ownership growing as experience develops.About You\nCategory Strategy & Market Analysis\nSupport the development and delivery of category strategies for Environmental Hygiene & IPC and People, Brand & Office Services, providing analysis of market conditions, cost drivers and new products or services\nCarry out spend analysis to identify consolidation opportunities, off-contract and tail spend, and savings; build preferred supplier lists and frameworks to reduce the number of suppliers used\nMaintain market intelligence on hygiene, IPC, corporate and staff services suppliers, including pricing trends and regulatory changes affecting care home operationsTendering & Procurement\n\nLead tenders for allocated sub-categories and contracts, and support the Head of Procurement and Senior Procurement Manager on larger tenders, in line with procurement governance\nPrepare tender documentation, evaluation criteria and scoring matrices that reflect care home quality and safety requirements\nManage evaluation and supplier selection, making sure decisions are evidenced and documentedContract Management & Supplier Performance\n\nSupport negotiations with suppliers to agree contracts with Key Performance Indicators, Service Level Agreements and quality standards suited to care home operations\nManage ongoing supplier performance and hold regular supplier reviews for owned contracts\nResolve supplier performance issues, including quality failures in critical categories\nCarry out supplier due diligence in line with HC-One’s Modern Slavery Act obligations and keep supplier Master Service Agreement documentation up to dateStakeholder Collaboration & Team Support\n\nBuild working relationships with HR, Marketing, Home Managers, Health and Safety, Operations and Finance colleagues\nAct as the procurement contact for owned sub-categories and contracts across the business\nSupport the procurement admin assistant who manages some sub-categories day to day\nSupport the Head of Procurement with procurement management information and savings tracking\nSkills\nGeneral Skills - Care Home, General Skills - Carer, Admin Skills - ADMIN ASSISTANT, Admin Skills - CONTRACTS, Accounts Skills - FINANCE, Safeguarding - SAFETY, Care Planning - Evaluation, Care Planning - Indicators, General Skills - Collaboration, Accounts Skills - Analysis, Accounts Skills - Reporting, HEAD OF SKILLS - Strategy, HEAD OF SKILLS - Operations, HEAD OF SKILLS - Governance, Marketing & Comms Roles - Marketing, Procurement - Procurement, Procurement - Supplier","description_format":"text","description_chars":3316,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Health Care","Nursing Homes & Long-Term Care"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-24T02:06:03Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-03T08:26:00+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":62,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.829,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":11,"expected_fill_days":15,"reasons":["conf:2","win:late"],"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/hc-one-senior-buyer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/hc-one-senior-buyer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-03T18:22:37Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":41,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-04T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3055972},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3055972"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fhc-one-senior-buyer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fhc-one-senior-buyer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fhc-one-senior-buyer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/hc-one-senior-buyer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fhc-one-senior-buyer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3191785}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"hc-one.co.uk","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3191785},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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