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Senior Buyer
Head of UK Procurement
At Hypersonica, we’re redefining European defence technology by accelerating speed, resilience, and technological independence. We solve high-impact problems with a small, elite team focused on execution and excellence.
This isn’t a defined role—it’s an opportunity to shape the future. As a ruthlessly autonomous, technically versed procurement leader, you’ll define what excellence means in our transformed procurement capability.
About the Role
You’ll build Hypersonica’s entire UK procurement function from the ground up, owning every aspect of the buying process for critical defence hardware. This includes everything from identifying early-stage material needs and negotiating contracts to managing supplier performance, expediting challenges, and ensuring flawless delivery for high-stakes programmes.
You’ll redefine how we source aerospace-grade components, propulsion hardware, electronics, tooling, composites, and more, ensuring innovation doesn’t compromise programme velocity. This is a role for someone who finds ambiguity in definitions and moulds procurement into a machine that drives delivery—not a hurdle.
Key Responsibilities
Procurement Leadership
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Build and own a zero-to-one procurement capability, including:
- Demand definition and strategic sourcing for critical materials, components, tooling, and services.
- Supplier identification, qualification, negotiating (RFQs/RFIs), procurement contract structuring, and purchase order execution.
- Strategic supplier management that balances commercial rigour with delivery execution.
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Convert technical uncertainties into executable procurement plans, translating evolving engineering and manufacturing requirements into actionable workflows.
Particle-to-Execution Ownership
- Secure complex, schedule/flight-critical items before they escalate into programme risks.
- Lead expediting and supplier recovery for late deliveries, non-conformances, and substitutions, ensuring feedback loops mitigate future issues.
- Ensure purchase order accuracy, contract fairness, and dependency traceability—from waist-watching to final programme readiness.
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Supplier-Performance Leadership
- Lead significant supplier initiatives, including:
- Identifying, qualifying, and onboarding suppliers for hypersensitive capabilities (advanced materials, aerospace electronics).
- Partnering with engineering/manufacturing to resolve technical obstacles (drawings, process constraints, materials).
- Structure supplier supplier intelligence architectures: from RFIs, responsible bids, evaluating pcnditional and emotional relationships.
Process & Execution Bridge
- Design and implement procurement controls—from approval workflows to spend dashboards—tailored to rapid execution and recurring production needs.
- Facilitate SAP procurement adoption, including supplier mass master setup, contractual agreements, and make-versus-buy strategic decisions.
Operational Impact
- Drive repeatable processes while prioritising urgent, mission-exposed items over administrative effectiveness.
- Use judgmental delegation to ensure the optimum supplier base scales with programme requirements.
Who You Are
- Expertise: Aerospace and/or defence procurement, singular responsibility for hardware/engineering lifecycles.
- Aptitude: Repurposing ‘impossible’ engineering requirements into sourcing realities.
- Humility & Toughness: Fits into tight, iterative environments, challenging suppliers without compromising programme success.
- Process Anarchy: Builds procurement from the ground up rather than maintaining an inherited line.
- Multi-Disciplinary Understanding: Navigates engineering specs, tolerances, and manufacturing processes fluently.
- Dual Expectation: A commercial sense (cost, negotiation) with hyperfrequency about what actual delivery means.
- Security-Clearance Ready: Must be a UK/dual-national with current or developing eligibility.
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Security & Eligibility Requirement
Due to collaboration with the UK MoD, applicants must hold dual-citizenship (including UK) and possess current/enable-to UK Security Clearance (for Defence Vetting).
Why You’ll Thrill Here
- Freedom & Ownership: No time tracking, no over-management—just clear impact targets.
- Work Culture: Zero bureaucracy; belongings create their tools daily—yes, it’s lean.
- Mission That Changes Everything: Technology matters to National security.
- Learning Atmosphere: Work alongside industry experts and drive programs ship—on time, right via enabling engineering, operations, and procurement processes.
What We Offer
- A non-people-audience company: We grow technology using subject matter evolution—security—our responsibility.
- Competitive base + impact-linked growth: Bonus tied to capability and execution, not identity.
- Flexibility: Performing as Herculean tasks; absorbed will com
**Hypersonica is modern, deliberately small impossible hurdles,
If this role sparks impatience, pace, and relentless judgment to build something better than the sum of parts, we invite you to apply. No formal application process—just fit and merit.
We respond to all applicants within 2 weeks and encourage self-direction. Who you will be, not where you’ve been.*
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