Principal Commercial Officer

BAE Systems - UK; Barrow-in-Furness; On-site; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading defense company is seeking a Principal Commercial Officer in Barrow-in-Furness. This role involves negotiating contracts, managing relationships, and mentoring junior staff. Candidates must possess excellent communication and client management skills. The position offers competitive benefits and a chance for career development within a supportive environment.

Benefits

Competitive pension scheme

Employee share plans

Flexible health and lifestyle benefits

Green car scheme

Private health plans

Shopping discounts

Annual incentive eligibility

Qualifications

• Essential skills include excellent communication and contract negotiation.
• Experience in client relationship management is mandatory.
• Ability to present at management forums is required.

Responsibilities

• Review, draft, negotiate, and finalize contracts and agreements.
• Provide contract management support and maintain customer relationships.
• Manage and mentor junior team members.

Skills

Excellent communication skills

Experience in drafting, writing and negotiating contracts

Demonstrable client/customer relationship management

Ability to present in senior management forums

Job description

Job Title: Principal Commercial Officer

Location: Barrow-in-Furness (3 days per week on-site)

Salary: Competitive

What you’ll be doing

• Reviewing, drafting, negotiating, and finalising contracts and commercial agreements with customers and suppliers
• Provision of contract management support, including contract administration, managing change, contract configuration and contract closure
• Customer relationship management: applying a high degree of customer focus, developing and maintaining relationships with both internal and external stakeholders
• Managing, developing and mentoring junior members of the team

Your skills and experiences

Essential

• Excellent communication skills
• Experience in drafting, writing and negotiating contracts
• Demonstrable client/customer relationship management; ability to forge strong working relationships
• Ability to present in senior management forums

Desirable

• Knowledge of terms and conditions, types of contracts, commercial skillset, risks and opportunities
• Defence sector experience
• Experience in managing and developing others
• Business acumen and Submarines product knowledge

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.

Commercial Team

As a member of the Commercial Team, you will work cross-functionally and with the customer. Your primary role will be to support the contact preparations, negotiation, bidding, writing and drafting, configuring, and managing of contacts. These consist of multi-function teams, such as Project Management, Engineering, Technical Specialist, and Supply Chain. Career Development is fully supported within the team, with the opportunity to move up to management level along with skillset development through further education and recognised training to facilitate lateral moves within the wider BAE business. We offer relocation support packages across all Submarines roles, subject to meeting eligibility criteria.

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

19th November 2025

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.