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Procurement with purpose: How Amey is setting a new standard for the sector

John Cully, Chief Procurement Officer
27 November 2025
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In June 2025, Amey received the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) Award for Excellence in Procurement.

The award serves as a benchmark of excellence in procurement, recognising organisations that demonstrate the highest professional standards in procurement whilst demonstrating outstanding performance, innovation, and impact in procurement and supply chain management. For us, it was external verification of our work in this area and recognition that the plans we put in place in 2023 were meeting our goal of delivering Supply Chain Excellence and adding demonstrable value to the Amey business. It confirmed that embedding procurement at the heart of our business, aligning it with our commercial and ESG goals, and building strong, long-term supplier relationships is not just working for Amey, it’s setting a new standard for the sector.

We developed a clear vision for Supply Chain Excellence and set out a specific programme to ensure we excelled in this area.

Getting the foundations right

When I returned to Amey, as Chief Procurement Officer in 2023, working with Executive teams across the Amey business, we developed a clear vision for Supply Chain Excellence and set out a specific programme to ensure we excelled in this area. It was built on four foundational pillars: People, Process, Technology, and Supply Chain Engagement.

We started with people, ensuring we had the right structure, the right roles, and the right capabilities and talent in the team. We embedded procurement teams within our business units so they could be as close as possible to operations while still benefiting from coordinated centralised direction and support through a focused Group Procurement team, but essentially all teams working to common principles, standards and goals. With this in place we then focused on process: simplifying, streamlining, and building workflows that genuinely fit the business and add value rather than slowing it down.

We started with people, ensuring we had the right structure, the right roles, and the right capabilities and talent in the team.

Technology is the third pillar and continues to evolve as we work collaboratively with our IT partners to push the boundaries in the procurement and supply chain area, embracing digitalisation and exploring how AI can add a new dimension to our activities. Ultimately however, everything circles back to the supply chain and how we work together. We manage around £1.2 billion of spend annually across 4,500 suppliers of various sizes, nearly 60 per cent of which are SMEs. Creating and managing diversity in our supply chain effectively to the highest standards consistently across Amey is essential, not just to deliver work well, but working with and developing our suppliers to be aligned and achieve our wider commercial and ESG goals, whether it be adopting our Zero Code safety culture, creating social value, driving decarbonisation, developing new solutions or supporting local economies it is essential that our supply chain understands how they integrate into our business through the adoption of our five core principles as a framework when working with our suppliers, and how this links back to the Amey business strategy.

Our customers are looking for partners who can deliver not just efficiently, but responsibly.

Commercial delivery and ESG go hand-in-hand

Many businesses overlook how ESG can directly support commercial success, particularly when it comes to winning work. But in today’s market our customers are increasingly looking for partners who can deliver not just efficiently, but responsibly.

A modern procurement strategy should go beyond compliance and cost control. It should enable your business to win work, deliver it brilliantly, and do so sustainably. That’s been our focus at Amey: creating the right conditions for success by aligning commercial delivery with ESG outcomes.

That starts with involving suppliers early in the bidding process so we can co-develop solutions that are both competitive and achievable. It means using clear pricing and contractual models that allow us to mobilise quickly to an established plan and deliver exactly what we have promised to our Customers.

Just as importantly, it means giving ourselves the headroom to focus on ESG. Long-term, stable supplier relationships create the conditions for investment in innovation and decarbonisation. For example, through our partnership and new agreement with Speedy Hire, we’re replacing petrol and diesel-powered equipment with electric product, a major step forward in reducing emissions. That kind of progress is only possible when you and your suppliers are in it for the long term, not just seeking the lowest cost.

By embedding ESG into our procurement and commercial strategy, we are not only delivering better outcomes, but we are also strengthening our ability to win work and build lasting sustainable partnerships.

We are shaping a supply chain ecosystem that’s fit for the future.

Defining and delivering excellence with our suppliers

Many organisations struggle to define what great supplier relationships look like. At Amey, we have addressed this by creating a clear ‘Working with our Suppliers’ Guide, built around five interconnected principles: safety and compliance, work winning and delivery, sustainability, governance, collaboration and innovation. Embedding this approach our supplier relationships ensures we’re not just delivering projects; we are shaping a supply chain ecosystem that’s fit for the future.

We treat our suppliers as an extension of our own organisation, working with them to adopt the same high standards we set for ourselves, while also supporting them to succeed. But with over 4,500 suppliers, meaningful engagement requires more than good intentions, it demands structure, segmentation, and a clear delivery plan with excellent communication.

That is why we have grouped our suppliers based on their strategic importance and tailored our engagement accordingly. For our most critical suppliers, we have introduced co-developed charters aligned to our five themes, with clear action plans and mutually agreed measurable outcomes. This approach ensures every supplier understands what’s expected and feels supported to deliver it.

What we are doing is for the good of the industry, not just our own business.

Leading the sector

Our approach is gaining traction beyond Amey. We are working closely with the Cabinet Office and the Supply Chain Sustainability School to share our model more widely, because much of what we are doing is for the good of the industry, not just our own business.

Clear frameworks, measurable outcomes, and stronger supplier engagement are not just benefiting us they are helping to raise standards across the sector. As we continue to prove that this model delivers, commercially, operationally, and sustainably, we are committed to supporting our suppliers with their own supply chain engagement, adopting similar approaches.

We will continue to raise the bar, not just for Amey, but for the entire infrastructure sector.

What’s next?

Right now, we are in the delivery phase of our programme, working with and embedding our five core principles across our supply chain. We are also on our digital journey embracing and trialling new technology and AI to make procurement smarter and more predictive and helping us be more proactive in how we engage suppliers, develop, improve jointly and continually deliver better outcomes for both Amey, our supply chain and our customers.

Ultimately, our vision for Amey is simple: treat suppliers as an extension of our organisation, embracing collaborative working to deliver better outcomes through a framework of the highest professional standards. But it is a two-way journey so we must listen to our suppliers and create the right environment to be able to innovate and bring great ideas to life. When our suppliers succeed, we succeed, that’s how we will continue to raise the bar, not just for Amey, but for the entire infrastructure sector.

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