Business Development Manager

BAE Systems; Pontypool; Hybrid; GBP 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading defense technology company is seeking a Business Development Manager based in Wales or Cheshire. The role involves providing market direction, developing business cases, and ensuring customer engagement. The ideal candidate has experience in customer environments and the ability to influence stakeholders. A competitive salary around £55,000 and significant travel are expected in this hybrid role. The company promotes inclusivity and offers benefits like pension schemes and health plans.

Benefits

Competitive pension scheme

Employee share plans

Flexible health and lifestyle benefits

Private health plans

Shopping discounts

Annual incentive eligibility

Qualifications

• Experience in a customer environment with a focus on building relationships.
• Ability to influence stakeholders and promote business winning.
• Knowledge of weapons and munitions is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Provide market direction for Future Programmes.
• Develop business cases and identify future opportunities.
• Maintain customer intimacy to maximize business chances.
• Support bid preparation and possibly act as Bid Manager.

Skills

Customer engagement

Stakeholder influence

Knowledge of Weapons and Munitions

Willingness to travel

Job description

Job Title: Business Development Manager

Salary: Circa £55000 dependent on skills and experience

Location: Glascoed, Wales or Radway Green, Cheshire - We offer a range of hybrid and flexible working arrangements - please speak to your recruiter about the options for this particular role

What you’ll be doing:

• Provide market direction into the Future Programmes team
• Being responsible for developing business cases to support new technology propositions
• Being directly accountable for identifying future opportunities and routes to extending existing contracts in order to meet objectives set out in the business pla. This includes influencing product strategies and future development plans, ensuring that we either have products to be able to respond when requirements emerge or have procurement / collaboration strategies in place to address
• Developing and maintaining customer intimacy in order to garner information and access to customer opportunities, thinking, knowledge and concerns that in turn maximise business winning opportunities
• Early identification of customer opportunities and influencing internal strategy and supporting preparation of bids, taking on the role of Bid Manager when required.
• Reaching back into BAE Systems to achieve goals, to include Land UK, Group Business Development and BAE Systems Inc.

Your skills and experiences:

Essential:

• Experience of customer environment and demonstrable ability to build customer intimacy
• Ability to influence internal stakeholders to take them on the journey of business winning
• Knowledge of Weapons and Munitions capabilities with the ability to link those to tackling current and future challenges is desirable but not essential
• The successful candidate must be willing to travel to locations UK and worldwide to meet customers as necessitated by the role

Benefits:

As well as a competitive pension scheme, BAE Systems also offers employee share plans, an extensive range of flexible discounted health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits, including a green car scheme, private health plans and shopping discounts - you may also be eligible for an annual incentive.

The Strategy and Business Development Team:

As a Business Development Manager, reporting into the Head of Engineering and Technology, you will be responsible for engaging directly with the technology team as well as the UK and international Customer Community on all aspects, particularly with regards to gaining insight and intelligence into future customer challenges, needs and plans.

This role will provide you with the opportunity to apply your skillset and diversify into new areas, supporting business growth. The role includes UK and International travel.

Why BAE Systems?

This is a place where you’ll be able to make a real difference. You’ll be part of an inclusive culture that values diversity of thought, rewards integrity, and merit, and where you’ll be empowered to fulfil your potential. We welcome people from all backgrounds and want to make sure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. If you have a disability or health condition (for example dyslexia, autism, an anxiety disorder etc.) that may affect your performance in certain assessment types, please speak to your recruiter about potential reasonable adjustments.

Please be aware that many roles at BAE Systems are subject to both security and export control restrictions. These restrictions mean that factors such as your nationality, any nationalities you may have previously held, and your place of birth can restrict the roles you are eligible to perform within the organisation. All applicants must as a minimum achieve Baseline Personnel Security Standard. Many roles also require higher levels of National Security Vetting where applicants must typically have 5 to 10 years of continuous residency in the UK depending on the vetting level required for the role, to allow for meaningful security vetting checks.

Closing Date: 5th February 2026

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.