Commercial Manager (Bids & Proposals)

Whitespace; Belfast; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

EMI scheme

Company pension

Private medical insurance

4x salary death in service

Job summary

Whitespace is seeking a Commercial Manager to own the response process for UK government bids, including pricing, Statements of Work and the written bid. You will work with Product, Operations and Finance to ensure compliant, well‑written offers, through the CCO, COO and Finance approvals.

This senior role offers scope to shape templates, content library, approval process and house style for the commercial team.

Qualifications

• Five or more years in commercial, bid or proposal management for complex technology or services contracts.
• Hands‑on experience building pricing proposals and SoWs within a defined pricing framework.
• Fluency in UK public procurement: MOD and public sector frameworks, the Procurement Act 2023, evaluation methods and social value.
• Working knowledge of UK defence commercial terms, including DEFCONs.
• Clear, plain English writing and strong spreadsheet skills.
• Ability to run several bids at once to hard deadlines.
• Eligibility for UK Security Check (SC) clearance; existing SC or DV is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Build pricing proposals, schedules and rate cards in the customer's required format, with cost and margin validated by Finance.
• Draft Statements of Work with clear scope, deliverables, milestones, acceptance criteria, assumptions and exclusions.
• Review customer terms, including DEFCONs and framework terms, and flag risks to the CCO and COO.
• Lead RFI, PQQ, ITT and framework call‑off responses from qualification to submission, owning the bid plan, compliance matrix and review cycle.
• Prepare Whitespace's technical and commercial inputs to consortium and prime‑led bids.
• Build and maintain the content library: case studies, CVs, capability statements and boilerplate.
• Run bid/no‑bid inputs and keep an audit trail from first estimate to submitted price.
• Report response status and win rates to the CCO.

Job description

Put the commercial case behind sovereign AI

Whitespace is a Series A-funded sovereign AI company headquartered in Belfast. We build Collective, our decision superiority platform for defence, national security and government. Our software has run continuously at sea with the Royal Navy, deploys on exercise with NATO allies and supports live UK MOD programmes.

We are growing fast, and that brings a steady flow of UK, NATO and allied government bids, tenders and competitions. We need a Commercial Manager to own how we respond: the price, the Statement of Work and the written bid.

The role

Reporting to the Chief Commercial Officer, you will be accountable for the quality, compliance and commercial soundness of every sales response we submit. Sales finds and shapes the opportunity. You turn it into a costed, compliant, well‑written offer, drawing on Product, Operations and Finance.

You will work inside our agreed product and pricing structure and take each proposal through approval with the CCO, COO and Finance. It is a senior role with room to make it yours: you will set up the templates, content library, approval process and house style the commercial team works from.

What you will do

• Build pricing proposals, schedules and rate cards in the customer's required format, with cost and margin validated by Finance
• Draft Statements of Work with clear scope, deliverables, milestones, acceptance criteria, assumptions and exclusions
• Review customer terms, including DEFCONs and framework terms, and flag risks to the CCO and COO
• Lead RFI, PQQ, ITT and framework call‑off responses from qualification to submission, owning the bid plan, compliance matrix and review cycle
• Prepare Whitespace's technical and commercial inputs to consortium and prime‑led bids
• Build and maintain the content library: case studies, CVs, capability statements and boilerplate
• Run bid/no‑bid inputs and keep an audit trail from first estimate to submitted price
• Report response status and win rates to the CCO

What you will bring

• Five or more years in commercial, bid or proposal management for complex technology or services contracts, with wins you can point to
• Hands‑on experience building pricing proposals and SoWs within a defined pricing framework
• Fluency in UK public procurement: MOD and public sector frameworks, the Procurement Act 2023, evaluation methods and social value
• Working knowledge of UK defence commercial terms, including DEFCONs
• Clear, plain English writing and strong spreadsheet skills
• The ability to run several bids at once to hard deadlines
• Eligibility for UK Security Check (SC) clearance; existing SC or DV is a plus

Nice to have

• Experience pricing AI, data or software platforms (SaaS or on‑premise licensing)
• Consortium bids, teaming agreements and work share
• Single Source Contract Regulations
• APMP, CIPS or World Commerce & Contracting qualification
• Bid tooling such as Responsive
• Grant and innovation funding, for example DASA

What we offer

• Competitive salary plus and inclusion in EMI scheme
• Company pension, opt in private medical insurance and 4x salary death in service cover
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme
• Four‑day weeks in July, August and December, the last Friday of every other month off and a 3pm finish on other Fridays: roughly 30 extra days on top of annual leave

Process

Candidates must be eligible for UK SC clearance. Pre‑employment screening applies to all roles. Whitespace Global Limited is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all backgrounds, including veterans and reservists.