Commercial Partnering Specialist

Atomic Weapons Establishment; Milton Keynes; Hybrid; GBP 38,000 - 50,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

9-day working fortnight

Pension scheme (contributory)

Enhanced annual leave

Job summary

Atomic Weapons Establishment seeks a Commercial Partnering Specialist to lead commercial planning across business cases, Make Team Buy inputs, and align strategies with Category Plans to deliver value and manage risk. Hybrid role with Reading-based site, occasional visits to Aldermaston/Burghfield, 9-day fortnight, and strong emphasis on cross-functional collaboration.

The role requires commercial acumen, procurement experience, and stakeholder management to shape demand early and translate

Qualifications

• Experience in demand planning, business planning, commercial support, portfolio management or related role.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Ability to facilitate planning discussions and drive consensus across teams.

Responsibilities

• Drive accurate, up-to-date demand plans to support commercial planning and delivery.
• Maintain visibility of commercial demand and pipeline information.
• Support alignment between Commercial delivery teams and Business Units through effective planning and engagement.
• Identify and escalate risks, pressures, conflicts and dependencies in a timely manner.

Skills

Demand planning

Commercial acumen

Stakeholder management

Planning and forecasting

Risk management

Job description

Role Overview

As part of the Commercial Partnering team, AWE is seeking a Commercial Partnering Specialist to provide commercial leadership and guidance throughout business case development, including Make Team Buy inputs, and develops commercial strategies aligned with Category Strategies to secure value, manage risk, and deliver business objectives. Commercial Partnering works closely with Business Units to shape demand at the earliest stages, maintaining an integrated forward pipeline of requirements and ensuring future product and service needs are translated into clear commercial strategies and sourcing requirements.

Package: £37,910 to £50,000 (depending on experience) Location: Reading, with free onsite parking. Visits to Aldermaston and/or Burghfield. Working pattern: AWE operates a 9-day working fortnight, with every other Friday as a non-working day. This role is eligible for hybrid working, meaning employees typically spend three days on site in a long week and two days on site in a short week.

Key Responsibilities

• provide demand planning expertise
• maintain visibility of commercial demand
• improve planning processes
• enable effective collaboration between Commercial and the wider organisation to support informed resource allocation and delivery planning

Key Accountabilities

• Drive the delivery of accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date demand plans that support commercial planning and operational delivery.
• Ensuring demand forecasts and pipeline information are captured, validated and maintained in line with agreed governance processes.
• Providing high-quality management information and analysis to support decision-making by Commercial leadership and Business Unit stakeholders.
• Supporting alignment between Commercial delivery teams and Business Units through effective planning and stakeholder engagement.
• Identifying and escalating demand risks, resource pressures, conflicts and dependencies in a timely manner.
• Enabling identification of opportunities for cross-functional and cross-organisational collaboration that improve commercial efficiency and value.
• Maintaining a transparent forward view of commercial activity, priorities to support planning of workload across delivery teams.
• Ensuring planning assumptions, dependencies and key milestones are documented and communicated to relevant stakeholders.
• Contributing to the continuous improvement of demand planning methodologies, tools, reporting and governance arrangements.
• Building effective working relationships across Commercial, Business Units and supporting functions to drive a coordinated approach to demand management.

About the Ideal Candidate

We are ideally seeking an individual with Commercial acumen, Commercial and Procurement experience, Category Management, Strategic Sourcing and Supplier Relationship Management, with excellent stakeholder management skills and a resilient approach to driving change. You should be able to demonstrate an innovative approach to problem solving.

• Must have proven professional experience.
• Experience in demand planning, business planning, commercial support, portfolio management, resource planning or a related business coordination role.
• Experience of gathering, analysing and consolidating information from multiple stakeholders to support planning and decision-making.
• Experience of working across functional teams and building effective relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills
• Strong organisational and planning skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and maintain attention to detail.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Ability to facilitate planning discussions, challenge assumptions constructively and support consensus-building across teams.

Benefits and Perks

• 9-day working fortnight – meaning you get every other Friday off work, in addition to 270 hours of annual leave.
• Market leading contributory pension scheme (we will pay between 9% and 13% of your pensionable pay depending on your contributions).
• Family friendly policies: Maternity Leave - 39 Weeks Full Pay and Paternity Leave - 4 Weeks Full Pay.
• Opportunities for Professional Career Development including funding for annual membership of a relevant professional body.
• Employee Assistance Programme and Occupational Health Services.
• Life Assurance (4 x annual salary).
• Discounts – access to savings on a wide range of everyday spending.
• Special Leave Policy including paid time off for volunteering, public service (including reserve forces) and caring.

Eligibility & Requirements

You will need to obtain and maintain the necessary security clearance for the role. This will be funded by AWE. The nature of our work does mean you need to be a British Citizen who has been resident in the UK for the past 5 years in order to apply for SC clearance and 10 years for DV. Please let us know on your application form if you need any adjustments/accommodations during the process.

Our interviews typically take place over Teams and for most roles are a single stage process.

Our ambition is to create workplaces where we recognise and celebrate differences, encourage diverse contributions and our employees feel able to be themselves at work. We strive to create a genuine culture of openness and inclusion and encourage diverse applicants. Any inclusion information you provide will be stored in accordance with GDPR and kept separate from your application form and CV, and the information will not be shared with anyone involved in interviewing or making hiring decisions.

Please note that you must be a British Citizen to apply for a role with us.

Additional Information

If you’re looking for a role with excitement, intrigue and something that really makes a difference then now is the time to join AWE. We are at the start of a once in a generation – possibly two generations – programme to design and produce a replacement warhead for the UK’s continuous at sea deterrent. We will do this while continuing to deliver the Trident programme as well as managing ambitious state-of-the‑art capital and construction projects – some of which have never been done before. Find out more on our website.

We are an Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award Employer. Visit the Service Leavers page to find out more. To register your interest in our Apprentice, Graduate and undergraduate programmes, please visit Early Careers.