Senior Contract Manager

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; Darlington; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Senior Contract Manager to lead contract management efforts in a dynamic environment. This role involves overseeing high-value digital contracts and ensuring compliance with legal and best practice standards. You will collaborate with various teams, manage risks, and optimize contractual opportunities while providing assurance to senior leadership. If you thrive in complex environments and have a knack for stakeholder engagement, this is your chance to make a significant impact in a transformational role.

Benefits

Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension

Flexible working options

Learning and development opportunities

Culture of inclusion and diversity

Qualifications

• Minimum CMCP accreditation at Practitioner level or willingness to obtain.
• Excellent contract literacy and public sector procurement knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Manage the Elections Directorate contract portfolio with oversight on compliance.
• Develop and implement the directorate’s Contract and Commercial strategy.

Skills

Contract Management

Commercial Acumen

Stakeholder Engagement

Risk Management

Negotiation Skills

Public Sector Procurement

Education

Contract Management Capability Programme (CMCP) accreditation

Job description

Job summary

Do you have the ability to handle periods of change and lead through periods of ambiguity?

Do you enjoy working in a transformational environment?

Are you able to present complex data in a clear and concise way to different stakeholders?

If so, we have an exciting opportunity for a Senior Contract Manager to join our team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and we'd love to hear from you! We are looking for an experienced and skilled contract management professional.

You will play a pivotal role, working with our current contract manager, in the management of the Divisions contracts as well as setting the strategy and plan for our future contractual arrangements.

You will be responsible for ensuring our contractual activities are managed in accordance with legal requirements and best practice.

You will seek to optimise our opportunities as well as manage, monitor and report our performance and risks ensuring appropriate activities are undertaken and risks are properly managed.

You will be part of a small friendly team which provides direct assurance and guidance to the senior leadership team and wider Directorate and Department of the smooth operation of our contractual activities.

Our Directorate manages a number of contracts to help deliver an ambitious programme and continue our business as usual. This includes some high value digital contracts as well as supporting contractual arrangements for other areas of work such as policy and research.

You will be expected to work closely with our digital operations teams and support them with their contracts and subscriptions.

This will include ensuring there is join up and consistency across the teams that support and facilitates an effective way of working. Your focus will be the management of the Directorates silver (and above) tiered contracts.

You will work in conjunction with your SEO and across our division with both policy and digital teams. You will also be expected to work closely with central commercial teams and so will require the post holder to have commercial acumen and an understanding of government commercial processes.

Job description

As the Senior Contract Manager your responsibilities will include:

• Manage the Elections Directorate (ED) contract portfolio with an SEO contract manager who will be your direct report.

• Oversee Elections commercial governance and reporting processes to ensure compliance and effective contract management.

• Work with the SRO and senior stakeholders to develop, implement and regularly review the directorate’s Contract and Commercial strategy.

• Contribute to the commercial case within the wider ED business cases as and when required using the appropriate commercial guidance.

• Prepare for contract commencement, ensuring all necessary arrangements and documentation are in place.

• Justify and control contract changes, ensuring that all changes are properly evaluated, approved, and implemented.

• Support the SEO Contract Manager with identifying and managing risks throughout the contract lifecycle, implementing mitigation strategies to minimize potential impact.

• Define transition plans, including those for early contract termination, to ensure smooth transitions and minimize disruption.

• Ensure your team has all the contract documentation in place and is accurately stored in the event of an audit. Ensure all documentation is readily accessible for regular checks from the Commercial Contract Management Lead.

• Manage disputes effectively, seeking timely and cost-effective resolutions.

• Evaluate suppliers’ performance against specific terms and conditions, ensuring delivery of strategic outcomes and high contract performance.

• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to ensure alignment of contract management activities with business objectives.

Person specification

• You must have a minimum Contract Management Capability Programme (CMCP) accreditation at Practitioner level, or a willingness to work towards it, starting within one month of taking on the role, with an aim to complete within nine months.

• You must demonstrate that you are confident in working in complex environments, dealing with ambiguity and be willing to collaborate across teams and professions to achieve the best outcome for the directorate.

• You should be able to demonstrate that you have excellent contract literacy and knowledge of relevant public sector procurement policy objectives and best practices.

• You should be able to demonstrate that you are able to identify and address your own learning needs to improve contract management capabilities; recognise team gaps, recommend steps to build contract management capability.

• You should demonstrate your ability to navigate complex environments successfully, encouraging and supporting stakeholders to do the same. This includes the ability to present technical issues and resolutions to senior stakeholders

• You should demonstrate, through your experience, your understanding of the importance of a contract manager’s involvement in early, pre-procurement market engagement activity and in the procurement phase of the contract management lifecycle.

• You should be comfortable being able to analyse and articulate requirements, benefits, progress and risks to stakeholders, responding effectively to challenge. You should be able to demonstrate influencing and negotiation skills to achieve contractual outcomes.

• You should be able to demonstrate that you can ensure internal and external compliance with requirements e.g. data security, anti-fraud measures and supply chain sustainability; including being able to challenge in instances of non-compliance.

• You should have experience in managing and building contract management capabilities with others, working in a supportive and collaborative environment. You will need to be comfortable being the ‘go to’ expert on contracts and comfortable offering options for ways forward.

• You must demonstrate your ability to respond to unforeseen challenges and changes that may arise right from the start, demonstrating your ability to adjust your ways of working to take a pragmatic approach, being able to pivot when new information arises.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,531, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £15,797 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role.

• An environment with flexible working options.

• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.

• ACivil Service pensionwith an employer contribution of 28.97%.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

As part of our pre-employment checking process, we will be using your CV to confirm your job history. Please note that by providing us with your CV you are consenting to us using the information enclosed as part of the checking process.

CV and Cover Letter Declaration

We recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity - this is called name blind recruitment.

Please remove references to your:

• name/title

• educational institutions

• age

• gender

• email address

• postal address

• phone number

• nationality/immigration status

You will need to merge your CV and covering letter into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and covering letter.