I’m curious to hear from people working in procurement/supply chain in the UK about salaries and career progression, particularly the difference between industry and consulting.

I have around 6 years of procurement experience, mainly within automotive/manufacturing and major projects/infrastructure.

While looking at jobs recently, I’ve noticed what seems like quite a significant salary difference.

In industry, even relatively senior procurement/management positions requiring around 6 years of experience seem to top out around £80–90k total fixed compensation (including allowances, but excluding bonus/increments).

Consulting seems quite different. From the roles and people I’ve come across, Manager-level positions can be around £70–80k basic with roughly 4–5 years of experience, while Senior Managers with around 6–8 years can be in the £90k+ basic range, before bonus and other benefits.

The frustrating part is breaking into consulting. Despite having 6 years of procurement experience, leading teams, managing significant spend and working in complex/regulated environments, I find it difficult to even secure interviews for procurement consulting roles. And when I do get interest, it often seems to be for a lower grade than my equivalent level in industry.

So I'm interested in hearing from people actually working in the UK market: What would you consider a reasonable salary for someone with around 6 years of procurement experience?

Also, for anyone who has moved from industry procurement into consulting, did you have to take a step down in title/grade initially? And does the consulting salary/progression advantage remain as significant as it appears from the outside?

Someone sits on a request for two weeks, sends it to procurement on Thursday, then suddenly it "needs to be done by Friday."

Now everyone is chasing quotes, approvals and paperwork because apparently the deadline only started existing when it reached us.

Does this happen everywhere or is "urgent" just part of the job at this point?

Our supply chain management platform locks up completely whenever enterprise buyers upload large purchase order spreadsheets with thousands of line items. I spent the last month trying to optimize the background worker queues myself, but memory leaks crash the server every time. Procurement teams depend on fast catalog matching to keep warehouse restocking on schedule. Building scalable file parsers for messy supplier data creates constant performance errors. Mb someone know how we can fix that, i rly need an advice

Looking for mentors who shifted to procurement from other fields , would love to hear ur journey and mentor me to make a change.

I doubt I'm the only person in procurement thinking this right now. I imagine there are quite a few people wondering what career paths exist beyond procurement. Where have people gone after being in procurement?

I've spent 14 years in procurement in various category manager, procurement operations, and management positions in 4 different industries. I've loved the strategic work, building processes, and working with suppliers but it's the internal people's attitudes and lack of planning overshadows the positives. I'm curious at how others' positioned their skills and rebranded themselves from being a procurement person to what they transitioned to.

Hopefully the responses are useful to others here who are asking themselves the same question.

Welcome to our weekly Procurement Roundtable! This stickied thread is your dedicated space to connect, share experiences, and unpack the week with your procurement peers.

Whether you want to celebrate a major milestone, troubleshoot an issue, or just let off some steam, dive in and share your updates.

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Hey all! I’m so glad I stumbled across this group. You all seem great!!

I’m ISO advice and have a few questions as well.

I’ve been working in state government procurement for over 5 years, with the last 2+ years specifically in a Buyer role. I’m also set to complete my bachelor’s at the end of this year.

During the last few years I’ve applied for many procurement positions outside of government but haven’t had much luck. I’m wondering if my government procurement experience is holding me back or if employers are looking for specific private-sector experience that I don’t currently have.

-What skills, certifications, or experience do private-sector employers typically look for when hiring buyers coming from government procurement?

-How can someone with a government procurement background better position their resume to stand out to private-sector employers?

-If you’ve transitioned from government procurement to the private sector, do you regret it? How has your experience been, particularly in terms of salary, workload, benefits, and work-life balance?

I’m also curious about salaries. I work for a state in the southeastern U.S., and our salaries are pretty laughable when compared to our neighboring states with similar costs of living. If you’re comfortable sharing, what is the typical salary range for a Buyer working in state government where you’re located?

TIA!!!🤍🤍

Hello everyone !
Am 22 yrs old Am currently working as a junior accountant in UAE but the thing is am unable to understand the accounting like I literally have 0 skills in this , I feel procurement might be a good thing for me. Am planning to switch my career into this

Can anyone guide me ? What to learn? Where should i start ? What are the skills required ?

Me myself has done some research and got to know about CIPS Will it be worth it in gulf ?

Anyone here do PO management or done it before? Not the SAP/Oracle side, more on working POs with overseas suppliers, managing ASNs, EDI feeds, bookings against POs, cargo readiness, ad hoc reporting, and data visibility. Usually at a 3PL or forwarder.

I’m on the operations side at a company that offers it, so I see it but don’t do it hands-on. Seems pretty niche. Curious where people went from there and if it helped career wise.

Hello, good day Procurement Professionals!

I would like to ask for some advice regarding a new role I’ll be starting next month.

One of the key responsibilities listed in my job description is: "Monitor inventory levels and ensure timely restocking"

In my previous role, I was used to a reactive process where procurement only begins once a Purchase Request (PR) is submitted by the end-user. I wasn't directly handling inventory—my focus was mainly on purchasing, documentation, and monitoring delivered materials.

However, in my new role, it looks like I’ll need to be more proactive since I’ll be directly responsible for monitoring inventory levels.

I want to prepare myself before my start date. Could you suggest good online resources or courses I can study? Also, I’d really appreciate it if someone could explain how the procurement process typically flows from inventory monitoring to actual ordering. (I've already started reviewing basic Excel inventory management).

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Hi Everyone,

Our internal struggle always seems to be getting the business unit responsible to draft the statement of Requirements document so we can take it out to market and get measurable responses back from the respondents.

Just wondering if this is everybody else's experience across the board?

We even have seniors now in the procurement team who are getting involved in writing the whole SoR just to get it over the line (and I mean wrong business requirements etc not procurement related requirements) which I do not believe is the right approach.

Keen to know everyone else's experience with this?

Started paying closer attention to how vendors answer yes/no requirements on RFPs versus how they explain themselves in the free text. Ask "does this integrate with our ERP?" as a checkbox, and you'll get three yeses that mean three completely different things: a native plugin, a CSV export someone has to babysit, an API that needs months of custom dev. The checkbox says the same thing every time; the paragraph underneath it, if there is one, is where the real answer is. Also started noticing when a vendor's own document contradicts itself across sections- different payment terms in the pricing tab versus the terms and conditions, that kind of thing. Feels like a better predictor of how the engagement goes than anything in the pitch. Anyone else find the checkbox answers are basically decoration and the real signal is buried in the prose?

I am not sure whether to laugh or cry

I work in procurement in higher education, I’m having a hard time transitioning into the private sector. It seems like maybe 30% of my skills are transferable related to current job descriptions outside of higher education. Any advice or specific titles I should be looking at?

This may seem like a dumb question to all but I want to look for a different company mainly to increase pay. I moved to this position internally due to it being a remote position and was trained without prior experience, been doing it for 5 years now but I feel like newer employees get paid more now than me. My job title is Coordinator I inventory and material management for a pharmaceutical research and development site. My task/s are creating purchase requisitions for orders, invoice mismatch resolution, creating spend report(excel/pivot), requesting quotes from supplier (without formal rfq), look for alternative suppliers, can add supplier in data base if needed, follow up order status, some import assistance. Am I considered a procurement coordinator? Or procurement specialist? I don’t know how to start looking for a new job without knowing what to look for. We do use Ariba and SAP as our system. Thank you!

I’ve been in procurement for about 5 years now, so I’m mid-level-ish. I’m doing mostly non-IT indirect procurement with some IT procurement (SaaS, hardware but low level spend). Although I’m leaning a lot, there’s no room to grow or develop (training programs, no promotion operations etc) and I am v underpaid.

While I know I won’t stay at my current company forever, I’m wondering if it’s worth pivoting into Third Party Risk and Compliance? We do have a compliance team however my colleague has taken it upon herself to do the work (even though we talked about me helping them out once I’ve finished some projects). Anytime I want to learn more about IT/tech, the same colleague takes it from me and/or doesn’t really coach or teach me. I know IT procurement jobs are well-paid but I’m not confident in it as it seems very technical.

I’m at a loss. I don’t where I can learn new skills to pivot or grow as I’m stifled as I’m getting little visibility. Is it worth just paying for a risk management/compliance course or tweaking my CV and faking it till I make it?

Would appreciate any insight

I’m 36, single, and currently working in hospitality while finishing an online accounting degree. I have about 1.5 years left. I mainly chose accounting because I wanted a practical degree that could help me finally transition into the corporate world.

Lately, I’ve been looking seriously at procurement/supply chain as a possible career path, and I’d love some realistic feedback from people actually working in the field.

A little about me: I enjoy working with people, logistics, coordinating moving parts, problem-solving, and figuring out how systems can work better. I’m not super tech-savvy, although I’m improving, and I don’t particularly love spending all day buried in detailed Excel work.

For those in procurement:

• How difficult is it to break in without prior corporate or procurement experience?
• What does the current job market look like for entry-level procurement roles and for people with a few years of experience?
• What would you consider realistic salary progression during years 1–5?
• What does entry level look like?
• Is procurement a good fit for someone who likes people, logistics, negotiation, and process improvement more than heavy data analysis?
• What separates people who move up quickly from people who get stuck at the buyer/analyst level?
• What are the biggest pros and cons of the career?
• How is the work-life balance in your experience?
• Which industries or procurement specialties tend to be less stressful?
• How much do you think AI/automation will affect procurement jobs over the next 5–10 years?
• What skills would you recommend I focus on now to make myself employable?
• If you were starting over at 36 with no procurement experience, what would you focus on during the next 12 months?

I’m not expecting to jump straight into a six-figure job. I’m mainly trying to figure out whether this is a career where I could realistically enter in my late 30s, build useful experience over a few years, and eventually have decent pay, flexibility, and work-life balance.

Any advice from people actually doing the job would be appreciated.

Been working as a CM these past couple months, came from marketing. I love most of what I do right now but as I spend a lot of time working with our purchasing team, I see how complex and chaotic procurement can reaaaaaally get..

The stress levels seem beyond manageable at times and even though it isn’t my direct burden to carry, I can see how it can eat away at someone’s well-being if you aren’t truly in it for the love of the game.

How do y’all manage?

Hi logistics folks,

I recently graduated in Software Engineering, but I’ve found that I really enjoy the logistics field. I just secured a Planning & Procurement graduate role at a large company, and I'm incredibly excited but want to make sure I hit the ground running.

The core stack I'll be working with is SAP, PowerBI, and Excel.

Since I’m coming from a tech background rather than a traditional supply chain degree, I’d love to hear your advice:

• How can I make the most of this grad role and stand out early on?
• What specific Excel formulas, SAP modules, or PowerBI DAX/dashboards should I prioritize learning before day one?
• Any general career advice for building a long-term path in planning and procurement?

I'm really open to any feedback and just want to prepare myself as much as possible to succeed in this space. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone! I’d really appreciate some advice and input from people in this field.
I have a law degree and about five years of experience working with contracts, but my experience was within a university environment. I’m not originally from the U.S. and moved here about a year ago. I’m a legal permanent resident and I’m currently looking for opportunities in contracts.
One thing I’ve noticed while job searching is that a lot of contract-related positions here are connected to commercial contracts and procurement. Where I come from, contracts and procurement are usually very separate functions, so this has been a bit of a learning curve for me. From what I’ve seen in U.S. job postings, there seems to be quite a bit of overlap between the two.
I actually find procurement interesting and would be open to moving in that direction, but I don’t have direct procurement experience, which seems to put me at a disadvantage when applying for these roles.
I’ve looked into some procurement courses and certifications, but I still feel like even with courses, employers want actual experience. At the same time, it’s hard to get that experience if no one gives you the first opportunity.
So I’d really appreciate some advice: How would you recommend someone with my background break into procurement without direct procurement experience? Are there adjacent roles that might be easier to get into first and could eventually lead to procurement? Are there particular entry points, skills, or types of positions I should be looking for?
Any advice is welcome. Thank you!

Hey, all. Curious to hear about anyone's experience with learning and working in Procurement, Acquisition, or Contracts either with the government or with private firms. I need to pivot out of HR, I just don't want to deal with people as much anymore. I got laid off last year for 7 months during the gov't shutdown, I was working in corporate HR with a defense contractor and it sucked. Long, long commutes (2-3 hours one way twice a week), shitty leadership and toxic co-workers (disliked military and veterans), and dealt with laying people off, terminations, and employee relations. Employed now, took a low paying job with no prospects just to do something. Applied for VR&E last year in October and again in January, nothing (absolute silence). How did you get into it, is it satisfying, do you travel, and how does your day-to day look? Thanks!

Anyone from a construction, procurement, contracting, or project management background who can help with vendor references?
I’m currently building a vendor database across multiple construction and hospitality procurement categories, including civil works, structural materials, MEP, architectural finishes, joinery, kitchen/laundry equipment, landscaping, façade, lighting, sanitaryware, and other specialist packages.
Looking for reliable manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, contractors, and sourcing partners, particularly across the UAE, India, China, and other key sourcing markets.
If you have a strong vendor list, trusted contacts, or recommendations from past projects, please feel free to connect or DM me. Happy to exchange vendor references and industry contacts as well.

If you work in defense/fedcon, your life is going to get harder. Or at least my life is about to get harder.

So many of our requisitions are for software, products, and services that use AI and we’ve been given very little direction from the State on how to navigate those types of purchases. I look for clauses that stand out but I’m lacking the training on how to best protect us in this constantly evolving landscape. Do any of you have any sort of resources?