Bid Manager

Satellite Applications Catapult; Harwell; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid policy

Job summary

Satellite Applications Catapult is seeking a Bid Manager to lead end-to-end bid management for complex opportunities, coordinating across technical and market-facing leads. The role emphasizes agile, customer-focused delivery with strong governance and continuity from capture to contract award.

The successful candidate will coordinate multi-disciplinary teams, manage budgets and timelines, and ensure high-quality bid deliverables while fostering lessons learned and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading and delivering successful bids using recognised industry best practice.
• Strong understanding of the full bid lifecycle—from identification and qualification through to handover and delivery.
• Strategic, agile thinker with ability to operate in a fast-paced R&D/innovation environment.
• Excellent communicator capable of engaging with SMEs, academics, partners and funding bodies.

Responsibilities

• Manage virtual and in-person bid teams and inputs from stakeholders (opportunity leads, technical specialists, partners, finance, commercial, legal, delivery).
• Lead end-to-end bid management from capture through to contract sign.
• Develop, resource and manage the bid programme including capture planning, scoping, shredding and storyboarding.
• Plan and monitor progress against plan; address issues with support from the opportunity owner and Head of Work Winning Services.
• Perform risk tracking and manage bid budgets; ensure costs are signed-off and compliant.
• Coordinate formal bid reviews (capture, red review, financial/ops review, submission approval).
• Ensure bid deliverables meet client requirements, on time and within budget; capture lessons learned.

Skills

Bid management leadership

End-to-end bid lifecycle

Stakeholder engagement

Commercial acumen

Agile bidding approach

Education

APMP Foundation (or equivalent)

Job description

The Challenge:

We are seeking a Bid Manager to work on our complex opportunities with our technical and market-facing business development leads. This role gives you the opportunity to share your end-to-end bid management skills and use them to work alongside business development colleagues. Together you will develop compelling value propositions, capture best-practice, scope opportunities and new, innovative concepts and solutions.

You will be responsible for managing opportunities from qualification to contract award. This includes the introduction and implementation of all necessary capture and bid procedures, governance, and processes. You will have a solid foundation in the methodology of bidding best-practice, but we also need someone who has the skills, behaviours, and confidence to take an agile and flexible approach that still delivers excellent proposals and a customer-focused service.

This is a highly networked role that requires an ability to work under pressure and to agreed deadlines. It requires strong people management and commercial skills. Experience of working on grant funding / CR&RD opportunities is desirable, but not essential.

Capture and Bid Management:

• Manage virtual and in-person bid teams and inputs from stakeholders, typically involving contributions from opportunity leads, technical specialists, partners, finance, commercial, legal and delivery
• Be responsible for working on opportunities with the business development leads to deliver the end-to-end bid management process (Capture through to Contract Sign)
• Developing, resourcing and managing the bid programme for your bids which includes capture planning, bid scoping, shredding, and storyboarding
• Planning and monitoring progress against plan, addressing issues as they arise (with the support from the opportunity owner, peers and the Head of Work Winning Services)
• Risk tracking and management throughout the bid
• Build and manage bid budgets, including translation to funder formats
• Ensuring all project delivery costs are inputted correctly, signed-off and comply with approval requirements
• Setting up and managing formal capture and bid reviews (bid approval, red review, financial / ops review, approval to submit)
• Ensuring bid deliverables are to the appropriate quality, on schedule, on budget and in accordance with the client requirements
• Getting and disseminating customer feedback on bids won and lost
• Instigating / facilitating lessons learned sessions to continuously improve the quality of bidding

Reporting and Governance:

• Report progress of the bid(s) to various stakeholders in the business at regular intervals
• Managing the handover from bid to delivery (Service Delivery Manager or Project Manager)

Stakeholder Management:

• Build and maintain strong relationships with clients, SMEs, funding agencies, and consortium partners
• Represent the organisation at client meetings, industry events, conferences, and workshops
• Lead or support external partners to produce high-quality bid contributions and align approaches
• Promote positive relationships and knowledge sharing across the wider business

Skills & Experience Required:

• Proven experience leading and delivering successful bids using recognised industry best practice
• Strong understanding of the full bid lifecycle — from opportunity identification and qualification through to project handover and delivery
• Strategic thinker with an agile, adaptable approach suited to a fast-paced R&D and innovation environment
• Creative and persuasive, able to develop compelling solutions and inspire teams around new concepts and services
• Politically astute with the awareness and interpersonal skills to navigate complex stakeholder situations
• Excellent communicator, confident engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including SMEs, academics, partners, and funding bodies
• Strong commercial acumen, financial awareness, and risk management capability
• Experienced in managing multi-workstream opportunities with attention to quality and compliance
• Familiar with governance frameworks and internal approval processes, ensuring adherence to bidding best practice
• Collaborative and supportive team player who helps build capability and consistency across bid teams
• Desirable: APMP Foundation (or equivalent)

About us & how we work:

We strive to create a high trust, high performance and inclusive environment that enables team members to bring their whole selves to work. This helps to create the foundations of an innovation culture. Our shared values are critical to this:

• We care- for our people, our partners, and our planet
• We connect- and engage with people and ideas
• We learn- and grow, as people and an industry

Underpinning this is our belief in great teams. Our combined efforts will always deliver outcomes beyond that of any individual, providing we are honest through debate, experiment and reflect, and create shared resolutions in support of our purpose. Live these values, work to our principles, take ownership to deliver, and we are certain you will thrive with us.

This job description set outs the skills and experience we think are needed to be able to perform in this job. If you believe you can deliver in this role then we want to hear from you.

We offer a hybrid policy which is designed around collaboration, one 'anchor' day per week working with your direct team and another flexible day per week to be spent collaborating or working with other colleagues.

Important notice for applicants: We use tools to detect plagiarism and the use of AI or chatbots for applicant answers. If plagiarism, AI use (such as ChatGPT) or similar software are found to have been used in your application you will not be considered for this or future roles within the Satellite Applications Catapult.

At Satellite Applications Catapult, we're committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workforce. We welcome candidates from all corners of the globe, but due to legal and logistical considerations, we want to be transparent about the potential visa-related challenges that could arise. Our ability to offer sponsorship will depend on the level of interest for our roles and salary level.

If you need any additional support during the application process, please do reach out and connect. We also invite you to share feedback via Applied.

Please note that we offer study support (at our discretion) and on the job training will be provided.