Tender Support Executive

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 38,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

An environmental research organization seeks a motivated Tender Support Executive to aid in developing and submitting high-quality funding proposals. Responsibilities include monitoring funding sources, coordinating proposal activity, and ensuring compliance with requirements. Ideal candidates will have experience in bid coordination and strong IT skills. This role offers a salary ranging from £38,939 to £41,321 and benefits like 27 days annual leave and a 10% employer pension contribution.

Benefits

27 days annual leave

10% employer pension contribution

Flexible working opportunities

Qualifications

• Proven skills in assessing bid competitiveness.
• Desirable experience with advanced functions including VBA.
• Comfortable managing your own workload and prioritizing tasks.

Responsibilities

• Support the end-to-end bid process.
• Coordinate administrative activities vital to proposals.
• Monitor funding sources for potential opportunities.

Skills

Grant/tender/bid coordination experience

Intermediate-advanced IT skills

Excellent interpersonal skills

Managing and delivering work with conflicting deadlines

Attention to detail

Education

Degree level or equivalent experience

Tools

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams, Visio)

SharePoint Systems

VBA and/or Access Database development

Job description

Salary – £38,939 to £41,321 depending on experience

Hybrid working (50/50)

Location: Wallingford, Lancaster, Edinburgh or Bangor (Wales)

Closing date: 5th December 2025

The Tender Support Team is seeking a motivated and detail-oriented Tender Support Executive to help drive the success of UKCEH’s research funding activities. In this role, you will work closely with our scientists to develop and submit high-quality proposals, ensuring every bid meets funder requirements, eligibility criteria, and UKCEH’s internal processes.

You’ll play a key part in keeping submissions accurate, compliant, and delivered on time. Alongside this, you’ll help identify and share new funding opportunities, collect and analyse submission feedback, and contribute to understanding and improving our success rates.

This is an exciting opportunity to make a real impact by supporting world-class environmental science and helping UKCEH secure the funding that powers its research.

Responsibilities

• Support the end-to-end bid process, from searching for potential opportunities through to submitting high quality bids.
• Coordinating administrative activity vital to a successful proposal, such as collating non-technical text (e.g. quality assurance), internal approval to submit, and document compliance.
• Monitoring funding sources including public sector portals for potential opportunities.
• Assessing bid opportunities for eligibility, funding models, and fit to UKCEH capabilities.
• Sharing opportunities with UKCEH scientists.
• Managing both internal communications between science teams, professional services and external communications with funders.
• Proofreading and editing final submissions.
• Ensuring UKCEH submission standards are used/met.
• Ensuring proposals comply with funder guidelines/requirements.
• Working closely with other departments to get bids through the internal approval processes.
• Responsible for uploading/completing the final submissions of proposals.

Qualifications

• Experience of grant/tender/bid coordination in a university, research organisation or public sector funded institution.
• Educated to degree level OR bid management qualifications (e.g., APMP) OR equivalent demonstrable work experience.
• Demonstrable intermediate-advanced IT skills, being proficient in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams, Visio) and SharePoint Systems.
• Desirable experience with advanced functions including VBA and/or Access Database development.
• Excellent interpersonal skills including written and verbal communication.
• Proven skills in assessing bid competitiveness, addressing and complying with call/funder specific information.
• Experience of managing and delivering work with conflicting deadlines.
• Comfortable managing your own workload, prioritising tasks, and asking for help when needed.
• Data quality is fundamental to the organisation, so you need to be attentive to detail.

Benefits

• 27 days annual leave, rising to 29 days after five years, plus 3 days for our Christmas closure.
• 10% employer pension contribution.
• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave (subject to qualifying requirements).
• 24/7 access to support for physical, mental, social, health, or financial wellbeing, plus trained Welfare Officers.
• Flexible working opportunities.
• As a valued member of our team, you’ll get all of the above and more.

Working at UKCEH is rewarding. Our science makes a real difference, enabling people and the environment to prosper, and enriching society. We are the custodians of a wealth of environmental data, collected by UKCEH and its predecessors over the course of more than 60 years.

Please note: Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role and this does not qualify for endorsement to support a Global Talent Visa application. If you are considering pursuing self-sponsorship, please indicate this in your application so we can take it into account during the recruitment process.

If you are interested, please apply with your updated CV and cover letter.