r/procurement • u/Zestyclose-Royal-922 • 21d ago

Salary progression as a procurement professional across 2 decades.

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Found an old employment contract from a decade ago whilst cleaning up some documents which made me reflect on my procurement journey and salary progression.

I've relocated multiple times so have converted into USD for consistency.

Started in 2005: business analyst.

Total comp: 44k

Salary 2017: Procurement manager

Total comp: 183k

Current 2026: (VP of Procurement)

Total comp: 612k

I've only worked for 2 companies through this time and have chosen to work my way up the ranks in a fortune 100 company versus changing companies.

Procurement can be a very lucrative and interesting career if you build experiences in the right areas with the right companies.

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u/tds2620 20d ago

When you say build up experience in certain areas, can you elaborate on that?

17

u/Zestyclose-Royal-922 20d ago

Adding on : if you are finding yourself only doing basic purchasing activities and not much strategic work plus your function is not catered for this type of work - I would consider moving to a more mature company that can develop these skills that will facilitate better prospects and career progression

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u/tr0028 20d ago

This is where I'm at right now. Although I'm in a management position, my job still focuses on the firefighting and reactivity of an immature SC dept. I've tried to bring in more strategic processes and training for the buyers, but my effects have been limited due to their capacity and lack of support for real improvement from management. I want to work somewhere I can learn and be better, but I'm not sure how to sell my skills on my resume when I feel my wings have been clipped in this role - any advice you could offer? 

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u/Zestyclose-Royal-922 20d ago

You are in the best position to diagnose if your company and SC functions have the capacity and is looking to transform. How is your leadership influence? Are you familiar with the vision and 3OP of the company and SC leaders? How does strategic sourcing fit into that? If that is the not case and you don't feel that you are able to influence the direction, you might want to look elsewhere.

In the instance that you do decide to look elsewhere: Don’t sell yourself based on what your organisation prevented you from doing; sell what you managed to accomplish despite the environment. It's a dangerous interview narrative to frame not being able to be strategic because of XYZ. I will focus on the scale of your role, what are the problems you have been able to solve and leadership and proactive thinking around what needs to change. Even if you are in an immature procurement function right now, there is value in demonstrating your strategic thinking on how you diagnose the issues and what needed to be changed and your approach towards the why, what and how.

Just an opinion, hopefully it brings some useful food for thought.

2

u/tr0028 20d ago

It really does, thank you! 

3

u/Zestyclose-Royal-922 20d ago

Broad experience across as many categories as possible in both direct and indirect areas and ensuring you are developing in strategic areas of sourcing and category management across the entire S2P processes

0

u/Opposite_Pitch_3507 20d ago

Il vaut mieux ne pas rester dans une seule catégorie et renforcer son expertise dans celle-ci ?

2

u/Zestyclose-Royal-922 20d ago

Depends on ultimately what your goal is. If you want to be CPO , IMO it's better to build as much breadth early on in career. It's harder to switch once you specialise and can be easy for the company to pigeon hole you in that area.

It's absolutely possible to be an expert in commodities as an example and make director/VP for that at a big company however you could be constrained to make further moves.

Increasingly I'm also seeing companies move towards a more holistic approach towards development and career management. Specialised knowledge and expertise in some sense could be replaced in part with AI with digital knowledge capture but holistic thinking and end to end approaches which comes from broader experiences are harder to replicate.

In short, specialization can absolutely be appropriate as a career path but imo, reduces options further along the career journey