Supply Chain Lead Planner

Location: Alton, Hampshire based with weekly travel to Isle of Wight

Job Type: Permanent

Salary: £30,000 – £34,000 per annum

Hours: Monday – Friday - with a half hour unpaid lunch break (40 hours)

A well-established manufacturing organisation is seeking a Supply Chain Lead Planner to join its growing operations team. This role will be responsible for leading supply and production planning activities, ensuring material availability and maintaining efficient inventory levels while supporting operational and customer demand requirements.

This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced planner with strong analytical capability and stakeholder management skills to play a key role in driving supply chain performance and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

Planning & Scheduling

• Lead the development, maintenance and optimisation of supply, production and material planning schedules.
• Ensure plans effectively meet customer demand while balancing inventory levels, lead times and operational constraints.
• Maintain data accuracy across planning systems, acting as a key data steward and ensuring timely updates from relevant stakeholders.

Inventory & Materials Management

• Optimise safety stock levels, reorder points and replenishment strategies.
• Monitor inventory performance to minimise stockouts, excess inventory and obsolescence.
• Work closely with procurement to ensure material availability and support supplier performance reviews.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with manufacturing, procurement, logistics, engineering, sales and finance teams to align planning activities.
• Communicate supply chain risks, changes and mitigation plans effectively to stakeholders.

Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve planning processes, forecasting accuracy and operational efficiency.
• Support digital supply chain initiatives including planning systems, automation and reporting dashboards.
• Contribute to the development of supply chain policies, procedures and best practices.

Skills & Competencies

Technical Skills

• Strong understanding of supply chain planning principles including MRP, DRP and capacity planning.
• Experience using ERP/MRP systems such as SAP, Oracle or Dynamics 365.
• Strong analytical capability with advanced Excel or other planning/analytics tools.

Soft Skills

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong organisational and leadership capability.
• A proactive problem-solving mindset with the ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• High attention to detail and strong analytical thinking.

Experience & Qualifications

• Degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering or a related discipline (preferred).
• Previous experience within a manufacturing environment is highly desirable.
• 3–7 years’ experience in supply chain planning, with prior leadership or coordination responsibilities advantageous.
• Professional certifications such as APICS/CPIM or CIPS would be beneficial.

Additional Information

The role will be primarily based at the organisation’s mainland facility. Weekly travel to the Isle of Wight site will be required to support operational planning and cross-site collaboration.

We do receive a significant number of applications. If you have not been contacted by a member of our team within 10 days of your application, please note that on this occasion you have not be shortlisted for the position. If you are ever in doubt about this, please call our team.

By applying to this vacancy, you accept Jade Recruitment Limited’s Privacy and GDPR Policy which can be found via our website, in turn giving us consent to contact you.

Jade Recruitment Limited are acting as a recruitment agency in relation to this vacancy and are an equal opportunities employer.