Materials and Supply Chain Manager

Job Title: Materials and Supply Chain Manager

Department: Engineering

Reports To: Fixed Wing and Rotary Wing Maintenance Managers

Location: Oxford, U.K.

Employment Type: Full-time

Job Summary

We are looking for an experienced Materials & Supply Chain Manager to oversee the sourcing, purchasing, stock control, and logistics of aircraft parts, materials, and tooling across our fleets.

The role will lead the Purchasing and Stores teams, manage supplier relationships and AOG requirements, ensure regulatory compliance, and drive improvements across inventory, supply chain efficiency, cost control, and material availability.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage sourcing, purchasing, and stock control of all aircraft parts, rotables, consumables, and tooling for all fleets.
• Develop and maintain optimal stock levels to support both planned and unscheduled maintenance.
• Ensure traceability, certification, and regulatory compliance of all aircraft materials in accordance with UK CAA, EASA, 2-REG, and applicable international requirements.
• Implement strategies to reduce AOG response time and optimise supply chain efficiency.
• Build strong working relationships with OEMs, MROs, distributors, and repair vendors.
• Negotiate contracts, service agreements, and pricing structures to achieve best value.
• Monitor vendor performance, turnaround times, and quality standards, ensuring SLAs are met or exceeded.
• Act as focal point with OEM support teams for material supply matters.
• Oversee material logistics including import/export, customs clearance, and global shipping.
• Coordinate critical AOG support, ensuring minimal operational disruption.
• Manage tooling control, calibration schedules, and leasing/exchange programmes.
• Implement robust processes for hazardous goods handling and regulatory compliance in logistics.
• Maintain records and airworthiness trace documentation in accordance with Part-145 requirements and CAMO record-keeping standards.
• Support internal and external audits, providing accurate supply chain reporting.
• Develop and execute supply chain strategies that align with business growth and fleet evolution.
• Identify opportunities for process improvement, digitalisation, and cost reduction.
• Analyse supply chain data to drive forecasting, planning, and efficiency gains.
• Contribute to aircraft acquisition projects and fleet transition planning by advising on material readiness and logistics.
• Manage and lead the Purchasing and Stores teams, ensuring all personnel are competent and current on required authorisations, and that workforce levels are aligned to business needs.
• Manage Exchange and Core returns, ensuring they are returned to the supplier in a prompt and cost-effective timeline.
• Identify, quarantine, and report suspected unapproved parts (SUP) or non-conforming material in accordance with company and regulatory procedures.
• Maintain and review the Approved Supplier/Vendor List, ensuring periodic re-assessment of supplier approval status.
• Ensure shelf-life, life-limited, and time-controlled parts are correctly tracked and managed to prevent use of expired material.
• Maintain accuracy and integrity of purchasing and stock data within the maintenance/inventory system, supporting wider business reporting needs.
• Own and improve purchase order approval workflows, ensuring authorisation levels are respected and auditable.
• Manage the purchasing and stores budget/cost centre, reporting variances and forecasts to Finance/SLT.
• Reconcile goods-received-not-invoiced (GRNI) and resolve pricing or delivery discrepancies with suppliers and Finance.
• Identify single points of failure in the supply chain (sole-source suppliers, long lead-time items) and develop mitigation or dual-sourcing strategies.
• Maintain contingency plans for critical parts availability during supplier disruption, insolvency, or geopolitical/logistics events.
• Develop training and succession plans for the Purchasing and Stores teams, including cross-training to cover key-person dependency risk.
• Set and review individual and team performance objectives in line with departmental KPIs.
• Ensure Stores areas comply with health & safety, COSHH, and hazardous materials storage requirements.
• Oversee stock-take/inventory audit cycles, ensuring accuracy of physical vs. system stock.
• Consider sustainability and environmental impact in supplier selection and logistics decisions (e.g. packaging waste, shipping consolidation, green MRO initiatives).
• Perform such other tasks as are reasonably requested by the Company SLT.