Senior Bid Manager

Job Description
Job title: Senior Bid Manager
Contract: Permanent (Full-time)
Salary: £40,550 - £50,688
Background to the role:
NIRAS works across areas – such as energy, water, fund management, and rural development – to build capacity and create sustainable development solutions for a better, more equal and stable world. With track record in delivering impactful projects worldwide, our collaborative approach, grounded in local context and international best practices, ensures sustainable solutions that drive positive change. NIRAS manages a vast portfolio of high impact projects across Africa, Asia Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. NIRAS Development Consulting is a Division of NIRAS focused on international development consulting for a range of clients, including FCDO, ADB, Danida, GIZ, the EU, KfW, SDC, MFA Finland, Sida, and the World Bank.
Job Description
The jobholder will be based in the UK and Africa Business Unit (BU2) of the Development Consulting Division which is home to a small core Business Development Team and four market teams of: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning; Economic Development, Climate Change and Infrastructure; and Governance and Gender.
NIRAS is seeking an experienced and proactive Senior Bid Manager to provide high quality bid management to bids for key clients such as FCDO, Defra, DESNZ, World Bank and MCC. The technical aspects of bids are led by staff from NIRAS’s technical teams (known as “Market Teams"). This role will work closely with the Market Teams and will manage the bid preparation process of high value, priority bids in order to ensure that our established Business Development processes are utilised and continually improved to support NIRAS to win new contracts. The technical focus of the bids that that the Senior Bid Manager will work on is wide and includes Climate, Land, Energy, Economic Development, Governance and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning.
Core tasks will include market research, partnership building, bid process management, bid writing, consultant recruitment; and commercial strategy development. In addition the role will contribute to the overall delivery of NIRAS’s business development work, including building the capacity of non-BD specialists to produce high quality bids.
You will have specific responsibility for:
Management
: Participates in bid preparation and positioning as required. Provides organisational, administrative and written inputs to bids including: developing positioning plans and bid schedules, developing compliance checklists, preparing proposal structures/outlines, writing context analysis and track record sections, preparing experts’ CVs and pen portraits, drafting work plans and overall ensuring tenders are presented compliantly, attractively and to deadlines. Furthermore, the post holder will lead on the production of internal bid decision documents as well as Expression of Interest submissions. As needed, the Senior Bid Manager engages with NIRAS’ offices across company to ensure that we are able to draw on the best available human resources and project track record to produce winning tenders.
Development Business Processes:
Contributes to the improvement of bid management processes to improve efficiencies and ensure ongoing compliance with both client and NIRAS business development processes. This includes capturing and disseminating lessons learned from bid processes and supporting in suggesting learning/sharing knowledge on specific BD processes at company-wide meetings.
Bid Preparation:
Leads/inputs into the development of financial/commercial strategies for bids, prepares budgets using internal budget templates and, where appropriate, prepares budgets in client budget templates for submission.
Recruitment:
Where required, leads the recruitment (searches and candidate selection) for selected bids. In other cases, support Market Teams and other Bid Teams with bid recruitment in line with established practices. Prepares well-tailored expert CVs for bid submission and/or provides oversight (e.g. QA role) of CV formatting and customisation undertaken by others.
Strengthening:
Proactively strengthens the business development capability of other (non BD-specialist) staff working on bids. This is provided through on-the-job coaching, mentoring and guidance to ensure colleagues are able to effectively contribute to winning new work through following NIRAS processes and BD best practices to submit compliant and winning bids.
Positioning:
Works closely with Market Teams to ensure that early positioning for bids is well organised and thorough, including gathering market analysis, building relationships with and selecting the most appropriate partners as well as the early identification of key team members for inclusion in bids.
NIRAS internal BD systems and marketing materials:
Support the Business Development Team Manager as required with the maintenance of internal business development systems and pipeline records. Support the Business Development Analyst and Project Managers with effective management of NIRAS’ project references. Prepare capacity statements to summarise NIRAS expertise to potential partners, as required.
Awareness / Promotions:
Understands NIRAS markets, key clients and product/service offerings. Applies marketing terminology, tools, tactics, principles and practices in company-related marketing activities. Develops and uses high quality customised marketing content and ensures staff utilisation. Attends networking events as appropriate. Promotes the use of BD best practices, working with the BD Manager to improve the availability and clarity of internal BD guidance and encourage uptake of systems, processes and best practices across the business.
Development:
Build, manage, maintain, and sustain partnerships with organisations, individuals and peers. Advise Market Team staff on optimal partnering options and support teams with partnership negotiations. Manage and influence key decision-makers within clients and partners through active networking.
Development:
Implements BD systems, with an emphasis on: streamlining expression of interest processes, and supporting the adherence to continually evolving client compliance requirements.
Management:
Expands personal business networks outside NIRAS. Identifies and wins assignments by utilising appropriate consultant and partner networks. This may include meeting partner organisations and key expert candidates in scoping missions for high value contracts.
Management:
May provide light touch inputs (not >10% FTE) on delivery of and support to technical consulting and project management to enable delivery of inputs by agreed deadlines.
Person Specification
7+ years’ experience in a relevant subject area (e.g. business development), ideally in an international development context.
Master’s degree in a relevant subject area
Proven experience in managing bid processes and bid teams for medium-high value contracts
Strong knowledge of key client procurement procedures, particularly UK ODA clients such as FCDO and Defra
Excellent communication skills, ability to express ideas/guidance/instructions clearly and accessibly
Ability to adapt and be flexible, prioritise work effectively and balance conflicting demands on time without close supervision.
Commercially astute with demonstrable aptitude in client development and management. ·
Proven negotiation skills.
Strong attention to detail and accuracy.
Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to establish and maintain positive working relationships with others.
Ability to work in a dynamic operating environment, sometimes fast-paced and complex.
Ability to deliver high quality inputs.
Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines
Advanced IT skills – working experience with Microsoft Office packages, business information/project management systems, SharePoint, Maconomy.
Eligibility:
Please note that we are not able to offer visa sponsorship for this position. Therefore, applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK without requiring visa sponsorship.
Salary and Benefits:
In addition to a competitive salary, NIRAS offers a comprehensive benefits package including:
25 days paid annual leave plus public holidays.
Employee Life Assurance.
Employer pension contributions, and optional salary sacrifice arrangements.
Company Sick Pay available from day one of your employment.
24/7 access to our Employee Assistance Programme.
Enhanced provisions for family-friendly leave/pay.
Paid time off for dependents and emergencies.
Cycle to Work scheme.
Flexibility over your working hours.
How to Apply:
To apply for this position, please submit your CV at your earliest convenience. Cover letters and any relevant portfolio or project examples are not essential, but will be reviewed alongside CVs if submitted.
Please do not hesitate to email Grace Hodgkinson (Assistant Talent Acquisition Partner UK) at ##### should you have any questions.
NIRAS is an equal opportunity employer with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals. We value diversity in all its forms and welcome and encourage applications from all backgrounds. We look forward to receiving your application.
Note: Due to time and workload constraints, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, and should you not receive feedback within two weeks of the closing date, please assume that your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.