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A County Durham procurement specialist is targeting a £2m turnover within the next two years having once feared the global pandemic could actually bring an end to the company he owns.
Johnson Procurement Solutions, based in Newton Aycliffe, recovered from a tough period at the height of Covid to achieve a record turnover last year. JPS are now looking to expand its workforce.
Steven Johnson, the managing director who set the company up in late 2016, is now more confident than ever that JPS can keep growing and has ambitious seven-figure targets for 2025.
Having started out helping small to medium businesses seven years ago, JPS now works with blue chip organisations such as Worley, Centrica, Johnson Matthey and PX Group providing flexible interim procurement and commercial support.
Steven said: “We want to grow the business and within the next five years we want to have a £5m turnover. We recorded our best financial results last year, those increased by 45 per cent and we want to do that again.
“We have shown huge resilience and because of Covid we went from having a large number of small clients to just four or five large clients. This is due to the strategic change I implemented to target the larger companies with a global footprint.
“Our focus is now on project procurement, large scale, and we went from working with £50m turnover SMEs to targeting organisations who have a turnover of £3-10bn.
“It’s an exciting journey and while there are only five members of dedicated staff here at the moment we are looking to double that by 2025.”
Steven is born and bred in Darlington. The 49-year-old former procurement director has worked with Laing O’Rourke, AMEC, Ericsson, Tolent Construction and was part of the Orange team that set up the first 3G network in Sweden.
JPS is actively looking to recruit a quantity surveyor and project procurement manager following expansion and they are looking to secure a new headquarters having outgrown their office at Flexspace, Incubation Centre, on Aycliffe Business Park.
Steven, who proudly partners with Tees Valley companies too, said: “I’m looking to recruit new people this year, procurement and commercial.
“We are looking at CVs at the moment due to expansion to help us achieve our 2025 vision. We want that increased turnover.
“There is a massive gap in the industry for our skillset. We know that companies engage with our services because they require our skill level and knowledge to take the company forward.
“We want to bring in the young and the bright, develop and shape them and work together with clients. We provide our clients a full support network behind them.”
JPS is a member of NEPIC and its company logo is based around a wolf because, Steven says, not only will JPS hunt as a pack for its clients, the pack will always support each other as a family too.
JPS’ key services provide large project procurement, category management, commercial services, bid and estimating support. They also provide strategic projects across industries such as oil and gas, energy, including renewables, the chemical sector and construction.
Steven said: “We provide our services with confident, capable, people. My team will come to me with any questions rather than the client, that is the support mechanism. We have a vastly experienced team of people in the areas we support.
“People want the work delivered on time applying best practice, and they need capable people around them – and we supply that – with my additional support.
“I always wanted to do something where I could provide best practice procurement and commercial services to companies. We follow the consultancy model and are not a body shop. Operating as a niche business, but have the appetite to grow.”
*For further information check out www.jps-procurementsolutions.com

Picture captions: JPS Managing Director Steven Johnson with Maurice Johnson (Associate Director) and Niall Douglas (Procurement Officer). Pictures: Chris Booth