The CIPS Procurement & Supply Salary Guide, in partnership with Hays, is based on an annual survey of 5,000+ procurement and supply professionals and analyses trends in talent recruitment and retention, including trends by job level.
According to the 2025 results, procurement professionals at “leading” level need to cultivate diverse skills to cut through in the job market – and having the MCIPS designation makes a clear difference to the outcomes they can expect.
What is a “leading” level professional?
“Leading” level professionals are individuals who lead a team in procurement or a significant operation. They contribute to strategic plans for their organisations and develop plans and objectives for their own operation. They generally hold senior manager and team leader roles, and apply critical thinking to address and resolve complex issues and developments.
Here are some typical roles at “leading” level:
Commercial Manager
ESG/sustainability Manager
Head of Logistics
Head of Sourcing
Operations Manager
Senior Category Manager
Strategic Procurement Manager
Supply Chain Manager
Supplier Relationship Manager
Insights that matter for leading-level procurement professionals
1. You need a range of skills to stand out
Up and down the career ladder, procurement professionals are increasingly expected to develop a broad skillset. As far as leading professionals go, the expectation from Salary Guide respondents is that they show influencing skills (43%) and communication ability (39%) – but also supplier relationship management (40%) and most of all, internal stakeholder management (43%).
2. The pay band is wide
The average UK salary for a leading-level procurement role is £67,984 – but that average covers a wide spectrum. While a supply chain manager or operations manager can expect to make just over £59,000, the average salary for a head of operations sits at £91,185.
3. Salaries are rising
While the overall average UK salary in the survey rose only slightly, from £53,502 in 2024 to £54,576 in 2025, professionals at the leading level saw the largest average bump: having made on average £59,200 in 2024, their 2025 average salary is £67,984.
By contrast, those at the most senior “influencing” level saw their salaries rise by less than £4,000. And at the “managing” and “delivering” levels, the year-on-year increases were even smaller.
4. MCIPS can boost your salary
The Salary Guide survey consistently shows that employers are looking for candidates who already are MCIPS or are studying towards the designation. Among UK recruiters looking to fill jobs at the leading level, 53% said they prefer MCIPS candidates.
But MCIPS also comes with a pay bump for those at leading level. In the UK, MCIPS leader-level professionals make nearly £10,000 a year more on average than their non-MCIPS counterparts.
5. The private sector pays best – but not by much
There is a clear difference between private, public and third sector salaries for leading-level professionals: whereas the overall UK average salary at this level is £67,984, private sector professionals come out on top at £70,444, while their third-sector counterparts are paid on average £58,090 each year.
However, that sector gap is far smaller than it is at the “influencing” level, where third-sector professionals make £78,617 against a private sector figure of £104,312.
Use our salary calculator to benchmark your role better
For a practical sense of what this all means for your role, use our salary calculator to find out what you’re worth and to compare yourself to others in the profession. The salary calculator provides average salaries for procurement and supply roles globally and can be filtered by not only job level, but also region, gender and sector.