As part of the Edinburgh Region Procurement Team, I and two colleagues manage the IS and Professional and Campus Services categories for Edinburgh Napier University. This is my second engagement with APUC, having first joined in 2017 when I was based at The University of Edinburgh, running the Laboratories and Medical Category Team.

APUC (and its subordinate company Universities & Colleges Shared Services – UCSS) is one of six regional purchasing consortia covering the UK Higher and Further Education landscape. However, it’s breadth of engagement with UK and Scottish governance; it’s financial and other career development support for staff from trainees through to leadership roles; and its general professionalism and productivity make it a standout organisation.

We have an enviable reputation both as an employer, and as a contributor to the financial and procurement governance wellbeing of our client institutions. This is witnessed by the continued organic growth of APUC, as more and more institutions rely on APUC staff to deliver their procurement function; plus, the large and growing number of commercial agreements put in place and managed by its Category Teams. Its eSolutions systems team are also busy rolling out their HUNTER contracts database and supply chain management solutions across the regional consortia. Without the support of APUC, I think Higher and Further Education institutions would face an impossible procurement and statutory reporting workload.

Finally, it’s a fun place to work, with plenty of wellbeing support and the feeling of being part of a large and supportive family, especially at the quarterly plenary ‘Away Days’ and wider Procurement Networking Conferences where representatives from the whole sector (and beyond) get together, not forgetting the upcoming 2025 Conference on University Procurement (COUP) which APUC are organising. I have no hesitation recommending APUC/UCSS as an employer to anyone considering a career in procurement.