Consultant - Cost & Pricing

Population Services International; Washington (District of Columbia); Remote; USD 83,000 - 124,000; Part time

Job summary

Population Services International seeks an on-call consultant to support the Cost and Pricing (C&P) function. The role focuses on advisory services for cost build-ups, pricing strategy, and budget reviews across the PSI network, with an emphasis on donor cost principles and templates.

The engagement is a remote, part-time consultancy with biweekly check-ins, flexible hours, and expertise sharing to strengthen in-country budgeting capacity.

Qualifications

• Experience in cost and pricing for international development proposals.
• Proficiency with MS Office and advanced Excel (Pivot Tables, XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, IF statements).
• Ability to review budgets for accuracy and alignment with donor principles.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Help-desk response: provide first-line responses to cost and pricing queries.
• Budget and budget narrative reviews with feedback on accuracy and reasonableness.
• Cost proposal support: draft responses and budget templates for proposals.
• Knowledge transfer: share guidance to strengthen country office budget development.
• Capacity strengthening: training staff to independently complete proposal budgets.
• Excel technical assistance: troubleshoot formula errors and improve templates.

Skills

MS Excel

Pivot Tables

XLOOKUP

SUMIFS

IF statements

MS Office

Job description

Contract

Company Description

Scope of Work

Team: Delivery, Cost and Pricing

Engagement Type: Consultant contract, part-time

Location: Remote/US

Background and Purpose

PSI seeks an external consultant to provide on-call "help-desk" advisory services to its Cost and Pricing (C&P) function. The consultant will offer specialist expertise in cost and pricing, budget development, and budget review on an as-requested basis, supplementing PSI's internal capacity during periods of high proposal volume. The consultant will provide services to staff across the PSI global network through the C&P team, which will assign and prioritize all requests. Responsibilities include providing expert guidance on cost build-ups, pricing strategy, and the application of indirect cost rates; reviewing proposal budgets and budget narratives for accuracy, reasonableness, and alignment with donor cost principles; building in-country staff capacity in budget development and cost estimation; and providing other ad-hoc cost and pricing support as needed.

Job Description

Scope of Services

At the request of the C&P team, the consultant will provide the following services:

• Help-desk response: Provide first-line responses to cost and pricing queries submitted through the C&P mailbox, and flag policy-level or sensitive issues to the C&P team for decision.
• Budget and budget narrative reviews: Conduct technical reviews of assigned proposal budgets and budget narratives, and return written feedback on accuracy, consistency, reasonableness of costs, application of indirect cost rates, and alignment with donor cost principles and solicitation requirements.
• Cost proposal support: For proposals assigned by the C&P team, provide advisory input on solicitation cost and pricing requirements, draft responses to solicitation questions, prepare budget templates, and support or lead budget development.
• Knowledge transfer: Through reviews and advisory interactions, share guidance and good practice that strengthens country office capacity in budget development and cost estimation.
• Capacity strengthening (Advancing the Network) - Strengthen the capacity and confidence of staff across the globe to independently complete proposal budgets, through a discrete and time-bound training and support series.
• Excel technical assistance: Provide troubleshooting advice on formula errors, broken links, and template issues in budget models, and recommend improvements to spreadsheet structure.

Deliverables

• Written review comments on each budget and budget narrative submitted for review, within agreed turnaround times
• Monthly progress report of help desk tickets with summary of observations, any tool revisions, and other cost and pricing requests.
• Completed Capacity Strengthening Activities, as agreed.

Coordination with PSI C&P Staff

• Biweekly check-ins are expected throughout the engagement period.
• Consultant shall set their own working hours, with most tasks to be completed asynchronously. However, consultant is expected to coordinate with team members to find joint times for meetings, updates, and coordination.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated cost and pricing experience including developing proposal budgets for a variety of government and non-government funders in the field of international development (e.g. USG Agencies, UN Agencies, Global Fund, Gates Foundation, FCDO, EKN/Dutch Government, GAVI alliance, etc.)
• Experience budgeting for a variety of grant and contract types (e.g. cost reimbursable, milestone based, firm-fixed price, etc.)
• Professional proficiency in MS Office suite
• Strong MS Excel skills including familiarity with advanced MS Excel functions (e.g. Pivot Tables, XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, Ifstatements, etc.)
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communications skills.
• Flexibility to assume a workload that often necessitates an adjustment of priorities.

Additional Information

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating equal opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment, regardless ofrace, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, pregnancy, genetic information, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and local laws. In addition to country law requirements, we comply with U.S. laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which we have facilities.

Equal employment opportunity, including veterans and individuals with disabilities.

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