Senior Bid Manager

Job title: Senior Bid Manager

Location: Reading (Hybrid working – 3 days per week on site)

Are you looking for an exciting opportunity where you can really make a difference by working on cutting edge, evolving technologies? Do you want to work with a highly regarded team who will support your learning and development? Then look no further…

We have an exciting new opportunity available in Thales Optronics and Missile Electronic (OME) in Reading as a Senior Bid Manager, working on our Air sector bids.

As a Senior Bid Manager, you will be in charge of specific bid-management activities to ensure the successful delivery of a bid or a number of bids within the Air sector. You will bring structure clarity and governance to the process and discipline relating to bid management activities as well as manage the preparation of the prequalification repose submissions to customers with the objective to securing an invitation to bid.

Core Benefits:

On offer is a competitive salary and benefits package, which includes;

• Performance-related bonus
• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00pm
• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) plus opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)
• 24 hours volunteering paid for
• Private healthcare
• Pension scheme
• Life cover
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app
• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers
• Gym membership discounts

What does the job involve?

• Participate in Bid Kick-Off meetings, providing bid management direction and engagement with the Bid Team.
• Manage the creation of the bid deliverables and ensuring review and governance, leading to the creation of a high quality proposal.
• Work effectively with Capture Leader to generate win themes that link customer needs with defined benefits of the Thales offering
• Ensure that cost estimates / target budgets are provided with support of Systems Engineering / Product Management.
• Ensure that cost estimates are effectively reviewed to ensure competitive and winning pricing
• Ensure that effective Gate Business Cases are prepared for specific opportunities.
• Support the Sales/Capture Lead in any customer negotiations and presentations.

What are we looking for?

• A proven track record of delivering successful project (not product) bids in contexts relevant to Thales – air, defence, heavy engineering or construction sectors.
• Experience delivering bids to the value of £5-60million minimum
• Ideally experience of single source government bidding (for repeat business)
• Strong negotiation skills with the ability to deal with customers, partners, suppliers and other parts of the business (stakeholder management skills).
• Comprehensive experience and understanding of the Bid Management process (including Change Control, Risk Management and Information Management)
• A minimum a working knowledge of industry standard approaches to bid management (such as Shipley Capture Bench).

Security Clearance statement

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a Non-ITAR country may be considered. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance.

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.