Purchasing Manager

Career Area: Business Management and Operations

Occupation Group: Procurement

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Purchasing Manager earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $69,149

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $68,609

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Manages the purchasing of supplies for a company or organization. Develops policies and schedules for regular procurements. Trains and supervises staff, develops relationships with suppliers, researches and inspects supplies, and negotiates supply and shipping prices.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Purchasing Manager is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Microsoft Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.
• Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
• Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
• Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Purchasing: Purchasing refers to a business or organization attempting to acquire goods or services to accomplish the goals of its enterprise.
• Procurement: Procurement is the process of finding, agreeing terms and acquiring goods, services or works from an external source, often via a tendering or competitive bidding process.
• Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
• Scheduling: Working experience making schedules, which are basic time-management tools, consisting of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place withing an organization.
• Supply Chain Management: In commerce, supply chain management (SCM), the management of the flow of goods and services, involves the movement and storage of raw materials, of work-in-process inventory, and of finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Purchasing Manager that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Strategic Sourcing: Strategic sourcing is an institutional procurement process that continuously improves and re-evaluates the purchasing activities of a company.
• Procurement Contracts: A procurement contract is an agreement in which a buyer agrees to acquire goods or services from a seller in exchange for consideration.
• Purchasing Management: Purchasing is the function of buying Goods & Services from External Source to an Organization.
• Purchasing Functions: Working experience of Purchasing Functions. Purchasing is the function of buying Goods & Services from External Source to an Organization.
• Supplier Selection: Supplier selection is the process by which firms identify, evaluate, and contract with suppliers.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Purchasing Manager
• Purchasing Supervisor
• Assistant Purchasing Manager
• Manager, Purchasing
• Senior Purchasing Manager

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Director of Procurement / Sourcing
• Procurement / Sourcing Manager
• Purchasing Agent
• Purchasing Assistant