Commercial Team Manager - Cost Audit

Scottish Water; Woburn; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 74,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus scheme

SW Splash rewards

Flexible working

Pension

Life assurance

38 days holiday

Job summary

Scottish Water is seeking an experienced leader to manage a team responsible for cost, compliance and commercial audits across internal operations and key framework partners, ensuring adherence to contractual obligations and governance.

You will lead, coach and develop the team, provide clear recommendations to improve processes, negotiate on complex matters and resolve escalated disputes to deliver sustainable value.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in commercial, cost and compliance auditing, with strong knowledge of financial systems.
• Ability to identify commercial risk, validate costs and ensure governance compliance.
• Strong leadership, analytical and stakeholder management skills; able to influence and communicate findings.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team responsible for cost, compliance and commercial audits across internal operations and key framework partners.
• Ensure compliance with contractual obligations, internal policies and governance requirements.
• Provide clear recommendations for improvement and influence positive change through findings.
• Lead, develop and coach the team to meet business objectives and maintain high performance.
• Lead negotiations and resolve escalated commercial disputes to deliver outcomes.

Skills

Commercial auditing

Cost auditing

Compliance auditing

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Job description

Together we are Trusted to Serve Scotland.

How’s this for job satisfaction?

At Scottish Water, we look after Scotland’s most precious natural resource. From source to tap, we’re safeguarding Scotland’s reputation for refreshingly pure water and caring for our environment at the same time. If making a positive difference to people, communities and the environment sounds like something you’d enjoy, we’d love to hear from you

What you’ll do

We are looking for an experienced and motivated leader to manage a team responsible for carrying out cost, compliance and commercial audits across both internal operations and key framework partners. In this role, you will ensure compliance with contractual obligations, internal policies and commercial procedures, while identifying areas of risk, validating costs and highlighting potential disallowed expenditure.

Using your strong commercial expertise, you will provide clear recommendations for improvement and influence positive change through the presentation of findings and contractual requirements. You will lead, develop and support your team to achieve business objectives, fostering a high-performance culture through coaching, mentoring, training and effective people management, including recruitment, performance, attendance and disciplinary management.

As a subject matter expert, you will provide guidance on complex contractual, estimating, costing and audit matters, leading negotiations and resolving escalated commercial disputes to deliver successful outcomes.

What you’ll need

Significant experience in commercial, cost and compliance auditing, with strong knowledge of financial systems, commercial management and contract interpretation. You’ll be skilled at identifying and mitigating commercial risk, validating costs, challenging expenditure and ensuring compliance with contractual and governance requirements.

Strong leadership, analytical and stakeholder management skills are essential, alongside the ability to influence, negotiate and communicate complex findings to drive positive business outcomes.

Looking out for you

While the work we do is important, we know it’s not the only thing that matters. That’s why we make sure you have everything you need to find a good work-life balance.

This is a full-time role (35 hours per week) and you’ll get plenty of time to recharge with 38 days of holiday every year (including public holidays). And you can even buy five more if you need a little extra time. You can also take time off to volunteer in your community.

When it comes to major life events we have family-friendly policies around adoption, maternity, and parental leave. And for the everyday? We embrace flexible working.

For your future, there’s our pension (the ‘know-what-you’ll-get-when-you-retire’ kind), and life assurance.

As for some nice extras? You will participate in a company bonus scheme. Not to mention access to SW Splash – handy rewards that can save you money on holidays, bills, and shopping.

The not-so-small print

This role will be a Grade 8. If you’re new to Scottish Water, you’ll join us on a starting salary of £54,776. Performance-driven pay progression would then allow you to move through the range to a maximum of £74,386

If you’re interested in this role – or know someone else who might be - we’ll be accepting applications until midnight on 16** th September **** 2026**.

We operate Balanced Hybrid working at Scottish Water and we encourage people to work half their time in a Scottish Water location.

Job offers at Scottish Water are conditional, and will be confirmed on completion of our pre-employment screening, e.g. referencing, criminal record checks, license checks, etc. Screening is conducted on our behalf by a third party, and must be completed before your start date. Don’t worry - we’ll only start these checks once you’ve accepted an offer.

A few final things worth knowing…

Research shows that some people avoid applying for jobs unless they can meet every single criteria. If you’re interested in this job, but don’t tick all the boxes, apply anyway! We hardly ever hire people who can do every part of a job from Day One. Everyone has a learning curve. So don’t rule yourself out!

Let us know if there are any changes we can make to our recruitment process to help you perform at your best. Lots of our people have disabilities or neurodiverse conditions (including some of our recruiters!). We’re also aware that some people might be experiencing temporary challenges because of life events, like menopause. We’re very used to making adjustments, so please don’t be afraid to ask.

As part of our commitment to developing a flourishing Scotland, it’s important that all our employees are Scottish taxpayers. If you join us, your home address will need to be in Scotland. If you don’t already live here, you’ll need to commit to moving here within your first three months.

Candidates should be aware that a valid UK driving licence is required for driving on Scottish Water business and claiming business mileage expenses.

Please note, Scottish Water takes the safety, health and wellbeing of our employees, colleagues and customers very seriously and as such you may be subject to Drug & Alcohol testing in line with our policy.

Finally (finally!), candidates who haven’t submitted an application in the last 12 months will have their records removed from our recruitment database. You won’t need to do anything. Your data will be automatically deleted.

We’re here to help. Ask us anything at [e-mail]