Bid Manager

Job Title: Bid Manager

Location: Manchester

Reporting to: Marketing & Business Development Director

Contract Type: Permanent

About Us

gunnercooke is a Top 75 law firm recognised by over 80 industry awards. Launched in 2010, the firm has rapidly grown to over 500 lawyers across 14 global offices in the UK, US, Germany and Austria. Our breadth of expertise covers some of the most interesting and important emerging disciplines, from ESG and charity law, to blockchain and competition.

Collaboration is at the forefront of our award-winning culture and is what sets our firm apart from the rest. gunnercooke operates as a fee share model meaning our professionals join as self-employed advisors, free to design and develop the practice they’ve always wanted. Our firm brings together the most ambitious and commercially-minded people, who build and work in dynamic teams of their choosing, to best suit their clients’ needs.

Our purpose is simple; to deliver a positive impact for our clients, provide a better life for our people and to leave a better world than we found. Our charitable arm, the gunnercooke foundation, enables us to directly engage with communities on social issues and to help charitable organisations grow.

The Role

The purpose of this role is to support the business and the Partners in their business development activity.

This is a hands-on role for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment and enjoys both strategic input and detailed execution. You’ll be central to supporting our partners win new business—through creating compelling bids, tenders and pitches.

You will be a skilled bid-writer and have the people management experience to grow and develop a junior member of team. The successful candidate will be unafraid to roll their sleeves up and ‘do the work’ to build the team, campaigns and processes that deliver results.

Duties and key responsibilities

• Lead the full lifecycle of the firm’s bid, tender and pitch process—from opportunity identification through to submission and feedback analysis
• Work closely with partners to develop persuasive, tailored pitch documents and proposals for major client opportunities
• Develop and maintain a central repository of high-quality content, templates, and case studies for efficient reuse
• Ensure that all bid materials reflect the firm’s tone of voice and values, while also meeting client requirements
• Coordinate Partners and Operating Partners and act as the lead writer for complex, cross-practice proposals and panel appointments
• Develop and embed into the business the bid qualifications process to ensure resources are allocated to the bids with the best ROI
• Line management and development of a business development executive

Required skillset

Essential

• Minimum 7 years’ experience in a bid writing role within a professional services environment (legal preferred)
• Line management experience
• Proven ability to write high-quality, persuasive bids and pitches
• Excellent listening skills with a proactive, problem-solving approach
• Strong project management skills and ability to manage multiple deadlines and stakeholders
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Great attention to detail
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively
• Ability to plan and control activities to meet objectives.
• Outstanding organisational and interpersonal skills and thrives on meeting exacting deadlines and delivering exceptional service to internal clients
• A calm, professional, welcoming approach with the ability to work under pressure.

Desirable

• Understanding of legal services and the procurement process within law firms
• Graphic/layout awareness for coordinating visually compelling proposals (in collaboration with design team)
• Strong PowerPoint skills for pitches

Personal Attributes

• Be able to maintain a positive and cheerful demeanour to building excellent working relationships with a wide variety of colleagues and partners.
• Be very people oriented – want to be helpful and sort things out for people.
• Thrive on spinning many plates with a cool head and to empathise with those you are spinning them for.
• Be a good team player demonstrating loyalty and commitment to the firm and your team.