University of Cambridge

Purchasing Assistant (Part Time)

Posted: Nov 15, 2025

Job Description

Are you seeking an exciting opportunity in which to develop your career in purchasing within higher education sector in a world-leading University?The Department of Physics is seeking a highly motivated individual to undertake purchasing and financial duties within our Finance Team, providing proactive support to the Department including academic and research staff.Candidates will ideally need to have previous purchasing/ accounting experience, excellent organisational and communication skills and be IT literate. The Department will accept applications from candidates without experience working in purchasing/ finance environment.This role has a wide range of responsibilities, including purchasing, managing departmental finances, conducting routine and ad-hoc financial reporting, providing financial training, and assisting with administrative services. You will be expected to work proactively with academics, researchers, and departmental budget holders, building strong and effective working relationships to ensure efficient and appropriate processes.The postholder will be involved in all aspects of purchasing and finance, including procure-to-pay, dealing with purchasing and travel queries, import-export, general ledger and research grant management and reporting, as well as facilities charging, invoice processing, managing expense claims, and overseeing credit card expenditure.It is vital that you possess excellent inter-personal skills to be able to work well with a Finance team and manage good working relationships with a wide variety of people from all over the world, in order to gain an understanding of the needs of academics and research staff and deliver a responsive service to them. You will be involved in contributing to continuous improvements in the Department's financial administration through close cooperation with the central Finance team.The Department has recently moved to a state-of-the-art, multi-million-pound new national research facility. This is an exciting and challenging time for the Department, and we would like a highly motivated individual with a positive attitude towards change and development to join us.Click the 'Apply' button below to register an account with our recruitment system (if you have not already) and apply online.Informal enquiries are welcome and should be addressed to Niall Taylor, Departmental Procurement manager nct24@cam.ac.ukPlease quote reference KA47933 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

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