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As you already know we are all about supporting your personal and professional development as well as helping you along the way with your career journey, that’s why we can’t think of anyone better to fill our open vacancies.
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- Requisition ID: 21100
- Employment Type: Full Time
- Job Category: Supply Chain
- Work Location: Wednesbury, UK
About the Role
As a Category Manager with MSC, you will be responsible for leading and driving growth within our largest and most strategically important category – Cutting Tools. This category is at the heart of MSC's business and plays a critical role in helping customers improve manufacturing productivity, process reliability, and machining performance. You will bring our category strategy to life through strong supplier partnerships, market-leading product propositions and innovative solutions that address the evolving needs of our customers.
The Category Management team is evolving to create an industry-leading product offering, supported by exceptional supplier relationships and deep market expertise. As the leader of our most significant category, you will have a direct impact on MSC's growth, profitability, and long-term success.
Key Responsibilities
Drive Category Growth
- Develop and execute category growth plans focused on machine performance optimisation, tooling accuracy and process reliability.
- Work closely with suppliers specialising in Milling, Turning, Threading and Holemaking.
- Collaborate with Sales and technical teams to support customer productivity initiatives, including machine set-up optimisation and process improvement.
- Lead strategic supplier engagement to deliver innovation aligned with machining trends, automation and smart manufacturing.
Enhance Category Profitability
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- Optimise portfolio mix across premium, performance-led solutions and strong value alternatives.
- Negotiate supplier agreements with a strong understanding of technical differentiation, application value, and total cost of ownership.
- Identify cross-sell and bundling opportunities across cutting tools, Workholding and toolholding.
Delivering Data-Driven Product Excellence
- Ensure technical products have best-in-class data, specifications and application content to support confident buying decisions.
- Build and maintain a clear Machine Optimisation product roadmap aligned to machining accuracy, repeatability and efficiency.
- Use insight from customer behaviour and supplier expertise to guide range rationalisation and expansion.
Additional Responsibilities
- Act as a subject-matter champion for Toolholding, Workholding and CNC machine equipment within the business.
- Support machine optimisation initiatives by aligning product selection to machining processes such as milling, turning and multi-axis operations.
- Evaluate emerging technologies including modular workholding, quick-change systems, probing and in-process inspection.
- Partner with Marketing to deliver application-led propositions and educational content.
- Monitor market and competitor trends to ensure ongoing category competitiveness.
What We’re Looking For
- Experience or strong working knowledge of category management, product management or commercial experience within the Cutting Tools industry, ideally covering Milling, Turning, Threading and Holemaking.
- Strong understanding of machining environments, manufacturing productivity drivers, tooling performance and process optimisation.
- OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) background preferred, with experience working closely with engineering, product development or manufacturing teams to bring innovative solutions to market.
- Ability to translate complex technical product features into compelling customer and commercial value propositions.
- A proven track record of developing category strategies, managing supplier relationships and delivering profitable growth.
- Strong commercial acumen with experience negotiating supplier agreements and driving category performance.
- Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills and confidence acting as a technical and commercial subject matter expert.
- Experience using customer, market and supplier insights to identify growth opportunities and shape category direction.
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Why MSC?
The journey to the best version of yourself starts with us. If you’re searching for an employer that will enable you to learn, grow and make a difference, you’ve found it.
You will feel a sense of purpose and belonging as we allow our people to have a voice and the opportunity to make a genuine impact.
We have created a psychologically safe and inclusive environment where we treat our associates as adults and give them autonomy to make decisions, take risks and learn from mistakes.
You will be encouraged to challenge the norm, make decisions and take ownership to make changes, enabling you to significantly contribute towards our business success.
Our people-centric culture will encourage you to continuously develop, both professionally and personally.
From our culture to our forward-thinking leadership, you’ll soon realise that you have an incredible opportunity here to be your best self.
Whether your career path is vertical or squiggly we’d love to watch you grow and reach your full potential with us.
Watch HERE to find out what it’s like to work at MSC and join us as we continue to build a team of people doing their best work
We won’t just give you a job, we’ll enable you to be yourself, discover opportunity, unlock your potential, and design your career.
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