Client-Side Commercial Manager

Connexus Recruitment; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Connexus Recruitment is seeking a commercial manager to join a NSW Government housing development program on a client-side secondment. The role involves working two days a week with the agency's development team and three days at the consultancy's Sydney CBD office or from home.

You will run EOI, RFT and RFQ processes, evaluate tenders, and prepare commercial recommendations for governance forums. You will manage development, works and consultancy agreements, negotiating variations and

Qualifications

• Experience running EOI, RFT and RFQ processes.
• Ability to evaluate tenders and write commercial recommendations.
• Manage development, works and consultancy agreements; negotiate variations and extensions.
• Collaborate with project director, legal and finance teams and head contractors.

Responsibilities

• Run EOI, RFT and RFQ processes and evaluate tenders.
• Write commercial recommendations for governance forums.
• Manage development and consultancy agreements and contracts.
• Negotiate variations, extensions of time and claims with contractors.
• Work alongside project director, legal and finance specialists.

Skills

Commercial management

Tender evaluation

Contract negotiation

Client-side experience

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Job description

Most commercial managers spend their career chasing variations on someone else's contract. This one hands you the pen instead.

You'll be embedded within the development team of a NSW Government housing agency, working across a pipeline of 10 to 12 social and affordable housing projects - 300 to 400 units per site, several hundred million dollars each, with more in the program over the next four years. Some are already under construction. Two or three need to get from procurement into construction, and that's where you come in.

The role sits with a Sydney property consultancy, blending big-firm project experience with a boutique, hands-on approach. This assignment is a client-side secondment: two days a week inside the agency' development team, three days at the consultancy's Sydney CBD office or at home.

Day to day, you'll run EOI, RFT and RFQ processes, evaluate tenders and write the commercial recommendations that go to governance forums. You'll manage development agreements, works contracts and consultancy agreements, and deal directly with head contractors - negotiating variations, extensions of time and claims as sites move through delivery. You'll sit alongside a project director, delivery lead, legal and finance specialists, so you won't be building the guardrails yourself - but you will need to think for yourself inside them.

Be honest with yourself about what you want here: this is a structured, governed environment with process for almost everything, not a role for someone who wants to operate solo. This is a role which will likely be a drop in salary if you work for a builder, the trade off though is better work life balance and no weekend work.

You might be a commercial manager or senior contracts administrator inside a developer-builder, comfortable on both sides of a deal. You might sit in a Tier 1 contractor's commercial team with genuine client-side exposure, or work operator-side, engaging delivery partners rather than administering subcontracts.

Government, institutional property or social/affordable housing backgrounds are well regarded too - and a client-side project manager with real commercial and contractual depth, while rarer, is still worth the conversation.