The Editor’s Letter

HI THERE

Writing a newsletter every week for me often turns into a quiet negotiation with reality. And last week, reality won.

I was properly ill. It wasn’t even “man-flu” but something worse: the kind of ill where you cancel everything, lie down, and hope for the best. It started as a flu, then very efficiently turned into a stomach bug, and more than a week and a half later I still don’t feel quite right.

At the same time, it was my son’s fourth birthday.

Which, if you’ve ever organised a child’s birthday while not functioning as a normal human, you’ll know is not exactly a low-effort side project. There were balloons, cake, logistics, small people with big expectations… and work still happening in the background.

Something had to give. So the newsletter did.

Coming back to it this week, I didn’t want to rush something out just for the sake of consistency. And, to be honest, it felt like a good moment to do something that I intend to start doing more and more every week, which is let someone else take the lead on the main piece.

This week’s Procurement by Design article is written by my wonderful friend Luke.

Luke works in direct procurement and, more interestingly, he came into the profession through an apprenticeship, which is still surprisingly rare.

I feel quite strongly about this.

Procurement has a talent problem, but it also has a pipeline problem. We tend to default to the same routes, the same qualifications, the same profiles. CIPS has its place, but it’s not the only way in, and in many cases not the most practical one either.

Apprenticeships, when done well, create something different.

And, just as importantly, they open the door to people who wouldn’t normally find their way into procurement at all. If we’re serious about closing the talent gap, we probably need to be just as serious about how we bring people in.

Luke’s piece touches on that from a place of lived experience which is why I wanted it in here.

Before you get into it, I’ve also put something together alongside this week’s issue.

It’s called The Procurement Late Deal Negotiation ToolKit.

It’s built around the cliché'd Procurement situation when you’re brought into a process and the decision already has momentum.

There’s a playbook, a commercial deep dive, and something on the people side, plus a one-page cheat sheet you can actually use mid-call.

It’s available free for the next 36 hours for newsletter readers.

Now, onto Luke’s piece. Let’s get into it…

Procurement by Design

THE PROCUREMENT TALENT DEFICIT

Luke Tomlinson is a Global Category Manager at RS Integrated Supply, specialising in MRO and managing a portfolio of 50+ suppliers across complex technical categories. He’s built his career across distribution and telecoms, with a focus on making procurement simpler, sharper and actually useful to the business. If you follow him on LinkedIn, he writes about procurement, supplier strategy and the occasional uncomfortable truth about how things really work.

In Procurement, we have long struggled with clear entry routes. Our profession often becomes “top heavy,” with senior or mid‑career hires filling roles while true entry-level opportunities remain limited or disguised as admin jobs.

Apprenticeships can change this. They offer a genuine starting point, and challenge the misconception that not taking a traditional academic path puts you behind. It doesn’t.

Apprenticeships are not a second-best option; they open doors for people with any level of qualification, or none at all. I know this first-hand: I entered procurement after an apprenticeship with no prior experience, just curiosity and the opportunity to learn.

Over the last decade, UK apprenticeship data shows a propulsion toward access, mobility, and inclusion.

Apprenticeships & Social Mobility

 Apprenticeships widen access and help break long-standing inequalities in professional careers. 

• 36% of apprentices wouldn’t be in their industry without an apprenticeship.

• This rises to 40% for those who received free school meals, strong evidence of social mobility.

• Apprentices declaring a learning difficulty or disability increased from 11.2% → 16.1% in five years.

• BAME representation rose from 12.8% → 19.2%, showing increasing diversity.

 They also deliver strong personal impact: 

• 74% value gaining work experience while learning

• 78% report significant personal growth

• 62% increased confidence

• But 62% also experienced stress/anxiety balancing work and study

This highlights something important: apprenticeships develop capability and resilience.

Why Employers Should Care: ROI, Value & Capability Building

Apprenticeships aren’t charity, they’re a strategic investment. Procurement faces well-known skills shortages; apprenticeships build future capability.

 Consider the ROI:

• The average apprentice generates £33,759 per year in employer revenue

• Apprenticeships contribute £550m annually to the UK economy

• Every £1 spent delivers £21 in economic return

In 2023/24, England reached 740,000+ apprenticeship participants (up 3.4% YoY) and 353,500 new starters (up 4.1%).

Higher and degree apprenticeships are growing fast, giving learners access to qualifications equivalent to degrees.

For procurement, historically restricted by “experience required”, this matters.

Apprenticeships Are Not for One Type of Person

 They support

• School leavers

• Career changers

• Graduates wanting practical experience

• Those without formal qualifications but with the right mindset

 Some of the strongest performers I’ve worked with entered through opportunity, not academia.

The Modern Routes Into Procurement

 Today’s pathways include: 

• Level 3–4 apprenticeships (entry level)

• Level 5–6 apprenticeships (foundation/degree level)

• Degree apprenticeships

• Professional routes like CIPS combined with on‑the‑job experience

These blend theory and practical capability, such as stakeholder management, negotiation, commercial thinking, cost analysis, right from the start.

 My own apprenticeship didn’t just give me a job; it gave me direction and broke the “experience paradox”: you need experience to get experience.

My Advice for Anyone Considering This Route

1. Don’t self‑reject

You don’t need a polished background to start. What matters is intent, consistency, and a solid work ethic.

 2. Focus on exposure, not just education

Real-world experience compounds faster than theory. Ask questions early. Curiosity beats confidence in the beginning.

 3. Employers: Invest Early

Great talent isn’t ready‑made. It has to be built. And for UK employers, the apprenticeship levy reduces the financial burden significantly. Research shows around 60% of apprentices stay with their employer after completing their programme, strengthening long‑term capability and culture.

My Closing Thoughts

If we want stronger professions, more inclusive access, and better long-term outcomes, we need to stop treating apprenticeships as an alternative, and start seeing them as an advantage.

The more we invest in people early, the greater the return. And in procurement, where talent pipelines are notoriously thin, apprenticeships aren’t just an option.

They’re a strategy that are far more valuable than any cost saving or cost avoidance number, they’re human value. And that, in itself, is priceless.

Freebie(s) of the week

THE LATE NEGOTIATION TOOLKIT

There’s a quiet shift happening in procurement that no one really talks about.

It’s this.

A lot of decisions aren’t being made in sourcing processes anymore. And they all add up.

I’ve been noticing this more and more over the last few of years, especially in areas like marketing, SaaS, professional services.

Suppliers aren’t just responding to demand anymore. They’re getting in early.

They’re running workshops, helping define problems and positioning solutions before anyone calls it a sourcing exercise.

By the time procurement is involved, the decision is already sitting in someone’s head.

And then procurement… is still trying to run a process.

That mismatch is where most of the frustration comes from.

On one side, stakeholders feel like they’ve already done the work. They’ve found something that makes sense, they trust it, they want to move.

On the other side, procurement arrives with structure. RFPs, evaluation criteria, timelines that feel disconnected from the momentum that already exists.

Neither side is wrong, I would simply say that they’re just operating at different stages of the same decision.

The problem is what happens next.

Because when procurement tries to force everything back into a clean process, we often lose influence quickly.

You become the person slowing things down. The one asking questions that feel irrelevant to the people who have already moved on mentally.

1. So you either double down, and create friction.

2. Or you step back, and risk becoming admin.

And let’s be frank…neither is great!

The more I’ve seen this, the more I’ve started to think that part of procurement’s job is changing.

Not instead of the traditional stuff. But alongside it.

It is now more about knowing how to step into a decision that already has momentum and still improve it. Knowing what to challenge and what to leave alone. Where you can still create value, and where you’re just burning political capital.

That’s not something most of us were taught but we learned it the hard way.

By pushing too much and getting shut out.
Or not pushing enough and watching a weak deal go through.

I started writing things down for myself after a while and it ended up turning into a proper set of documents.

• A playbook for reading the situation quickly.

• A deep dive into how to fix the deal itself.

• And something more practical on the conversation side, because that’s where most of it actually plays out.

I’m sharing the whole thing in this issue.

It’s free for the next 48 hours for newsletter readers.

Download the Survival Kit here.

Do you want access to other great templates from previous newsletters? Have a look at the full store below:

That’s it for this week.

I really think that I am going to start bringing more guest writers in over the next few months (contact me with your bio if you want to join us!).

In part it is because our profession looks very different depending on where you sit, and one voice only gets you so far. There are people doing really thoughtful work that I look up to in our industry who don’t always have a platform for it and I have the opportunity of giving it to them

So you’ll start seeing more of that. Different perspectives, different categories, different ways of thinking about the same problems.

Also, a small heads-up. There’s a good chance I’ll skip one issue over the next couple of weeks, either the 6th or the 13th of April.

See, we’ve got over two weeks of holidays here in Alicante, which sounds lovely until you realise childcare will become a full-time operation and trying to work, parent, and write something that isn’t rubbish at the same time starts to feel… ambitious.

And, to be honest, it’s probably a good moment to step back for a week anyway.

The more things you build, the easier it is to convince yourself that everything is important. That everything needs to go out. That consistency matters above all else.

And then you look at your week and realise there isn’t a single gap that isn’t filled with something “useful”.

With that in mind, there’s a line from Bertrand Russell that I’ve always liked:

Ok so it is not really about work in the literal sense, but rather about the idea that being busy, even productively busy, doesn’t always mean you’re doing the right thing.

So if there’s a missing issue in the next couple of weeks, that’s why.

I’ll be back the week after, ideally having done slightly less… and thought a bit more.

Until next time

Procurement worth reading.