Keyline Civils Specialist
Category Manager – Utilities and Specialist Infrastructure
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Keyline, part of Travis Perkins plc, are now hiring for an exceptional Utilities and Specialist Infrastructure Category Manager to join our commercial leadership team and play a pivotal role in shaping the commercial future of our business.
This is far more than a traditional procurement or supplier management role. You'll act as the crucial commercial bridge between suppliers and our internal sales network driving strategic partnerships, supporting targeted sales campaigns, and ensuring seamless cross-business alignment to win major national and regional business.
If you're a commercially minded, customer-focused category leader who thrives on building impactful range strategies, negotiating strong trading terms and delivering profitable growth in a fast-paced environment, we'd love to hear from you!
The Opportunity
As Category Manager – Utilities and Specialist Infrastructure, reporting directly to the Commercial Director, you will take full ownership of Keyline’s commercial strategy across the Utility and Specialist Infrastructure markets.
You will hold end-to-end accountability for category sales, gross margin, supplier trading terms (rebates), product availability and stock health. Working in close collaboration with branch, sales and marketing teams.
What You'll Be Doing
- Strategy Ownership: Creating, owning, and delivering a customer focused category strategy that drives profitable growth in sales, gross margin and market share.
- Customer Proposition & Range: Developing a market leading product range that offers the optimum balance of quality and value, fully aligned with contractor and customer requirements.
- Margin & Terms Optimisation: Delivering COGs and margin improvements through robust supplier trading term negotiations, group synergy projects and direct sourcing initiatives.
- Budget Accountability: Owning the category budget for sales and profitability, continuously monitoring trading performance and executing agile action plans to meet business targets.
- Supplier Performance & Safety: Actively managing supplier relationships to guarantee they meet key performance metrics, service levels and strict safety expectations.
- Cross-Functional Execution: Collaborating with branch, sales, marketing, and pricing teams to execute promotional campaigns, pricing strategies and optimised range and space plans.
- Stock & Availability Management: Partnering with supply chain teams to achieve product availability targets while cost-effectively managing slow moving, dead, or exit stock.
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About You
You'll be an ambitious, highly resilient commercial leader who combines strong analytical capabilities with exceptional negotiation skills and a passion for building lasting stakeholder relationships.
Essential
- Proven experience in category management or a similar commercial role within the building, distribution, or infrastructure sectors.
- Demonstrated track record of developing and executing successful category strategies informed by market analysis.
- Strong commercial acumen and analytical capability, with hands-on experience in supplier management and range development.
- Powerful negotiation, persuasion, and stakeholder engagement skills.
- Self-motivated and adaptable problem-solver, capable of working at pace and making independent commercial decisions to meet tight deadlines.
- Minimum A-level or college equivalent education.
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We'd Particularly Like to See
- CIPS qualification (or equivalent).
- Deep product and market knowledge within the Utilities and Specialist Infrastructure sectors.
- Good understanding of building industry key customers, market drivers, regulatory legislation, and competitor networks.
- Experience leading project delivery across multi-functional teams.
What’s in it for you?
- Competitive base salary plus an annual bonus linked to business performance
- Company car allowance / Company Car
- Generous pension scheme with matched contributions (based on length of service)
- Save as you earn and share schemes that let you share in the Group's success.
- Colleague discount across Travis Perkins Group brands - 20% off at Toolstation
- Private medical cover
Why Join Us?
You'll have the opportunity to:
- Shape and elevate the commercial strategy for Keyline’s key utility and infrastructure accounts.
- Take complete ownership of a high value category budget.
- Partner directly with external supplier executives, internal sales directors and regional branch teams.
- Drive meaningful financial and operational improvements through strategic sourcing, pricing and range architecture.
Ready to Make an Impact?
If you're an ambitious category leader looking for a role that combines strategic influence, market innovation and direct commercial impact, we'd love to hear from you!
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