OREANDA-NEWS. Jaguar Land Rover has launched a new recruitment campaign to fill more than 100 new roles within its growing purchasing team. The campaign, which is live on the Jaguar Land Rover careers website, is seeking to attract experienced purchasing professionals to support its production, non-production and supplier development operations.

Purchasing is Jaguar Land Rover's fastest growing business function having seen its headcount more than double, since 2009. The additional vacancies for procurement specialists, purchasing managers and supplier development engineers and managers will take the team to almost 700 strong.

Commenting on the campaign, Ian Harnett, Jaguar Land Rover, purchasing director said, “In the last two years Jaguar Land Rover has invested almost £10 billion in the UK supply chain alone. This spend is indicative of the important role played by every member of the purchasing team in helping Jaguar Land Rover realise its ambitions and in turn positively impact the prosperity of the UK automotive sector.

“If we are to continue to do this we need experienced and talented buyers and managers including those who may not have previously considered a career in the automotive industry. Jaguar Land Rover is at an incredibly exciting juncture in its history and with each production buyer responsible for an average spend of £50 million per annum, we can guarantee new recruits will be empowered to drive Jaguar Land Rovers future success.”

In recent years, Jaguar Land Rover has seen a number of purchasing professionals successfully make the switch to the automotive sector from aerospace, retail and construction. One such person is Samantha Shaw who joined Jaguar Land Rover in 2008 from luxury home retailer 'Fired Earth'. Since joining as a programme buyer, Ms Samantha quickly moved through the organisation, and is now a programme project manager, working on new vehicle development and launches.

Of her move to Jaguar Land Rover she says, “I had always wanted to work in the automotive industry and when the opportunity arose to join Jaguar Land Rover, I jumped at it. The fact that I did not have any automotive experience did not hold me back as I was easily able to transfer my purchasing skills. I have since established a successful career working on some fantastic vehicle programmes, including of late the Jaguar F-Type. Since joining the company I have never once looked back nor can I see myself ever wanting to leave.”

This is the latest in a line of recruitment activities, which has seen employee numbers increase by more than 9,000 at the UK largest automotive employer in the last two years alone across its five advanced manufacturing and engineering sites.