Senior Bid Writer & Bid Manager

Job description

The Business We’re an AI-native, human-led business built to help clients reimagine, reinvent, and lead their markets into the AI era. We bring the imagination, intellect and market insight, execution smarts, and adaptive approach to collaboration required to help leaders deliver real change. We work with clients in four closely interdependent markets: central Government, including departments, agencies, and strategic, commercial suppliers; health and care, including national bodies, trusts, place-based partners, and commercial and digital suppliers; education, including national bodies, awarding organisations, and front-line institutions; and, the FTSE - principally leveraging our expertise in AI and associated capability building. Through A WORKS we collaborate with thought leaders, innovators, and AI-specialist developers to build products and solutions which tackle the biggest problems we see in the markets we support – setting aside the consulting commercial model to work in whatever ways best solve the problem. For example, through Project Shybird , we recently launched a suite of tools which innovate the education value chain to bring deeply researched, high-quality qualifications and learning programmes to market at pace; create and support deeply personalised learning experiences; and close the loop with deep insight. We are a business powered by the passion, grit, insight, intellect, and execution-smarts of our people: a tightly knit team of market experts, willing to challenge market convention, and our colleagues, in pursuit of the transformational change we believe is possible through the dawn of the AI era. The role This is a key strategic investment in our growth. As our Senior Bid Writer and Bid Manager, you will play a pivotal role in helping us win new business, primarily across the UK public sector. Working to our Growth Director and market teams, you will shape how we identify , develop and submit winning bids, embedding a best-in-class bidding capability that becomes a competitive advantage for the business. While great bid writing is at the heart of this role, there is opportunity for you to grow and take on more. You will support us to develop our bid strategy, develop compelling win themes, establish reusable content and processes, and continually improve our approach to winning work. You will share your expertise across the business to train others in writing winning bids. There will also be opportunities to apply your expertise as a consultant in our central Government market - supporting strategic suppliers to government with bid strategy, proposal development, bid reviews and capture planning for major public sector procurements. Under that banner the role spans the full range of financial management and reporting including: Bid leadership and ownership Take ownership of the end-to-end bid process, from opportunity qualification support through to final submission, ensuring clear governance, disciplined planning and high-quality outputs. Interpret procurement documents, evaluation criteria and buyer requirements, translating them into a clear response strategy, compliance matrix and delivery plan. Develop compelling bid strategies, value propositions and win themes in collaboration with the Growth Director, market leads and subject matter experts. Lead contributors through the bid lifecycle, setting clear expectations, managing deadlines, resolving dependencies and maintaining momentum under pressure. Run effective bid kick-off, storyboarding, review and sign-off sessions, ensuring decisions are documented and actions are followed through. Writing, editing and quality assurance Write, edit and shape persuasive, customer-focused responses that are concise, evidence-led and tailored to the buyer's stated needs. Turn technical, operational and commercial input from colleagues into coherent, differentiated responses with a clear proposition and strong narrative thread. Apply excellent judgement on tone, structure, evidence, benefits and outcomes, ensuring submissions are credible, compliant and easy for evaluators to score. Challenge weak, generic or unsupported content constructively, working with colleagues to strengthen messages, proof points and delivery commitments. Lead quality assurance across grammar, formatting, consistency, compliance, scoring alignment and overall response impact. Stakeholder management and bid behaviours Build trusted working relationships with senior stakeholders, consultants, subject matter experts and partners. Bring calm, structure and pace to complex bids, balancing attention to detail with pragmatism and commercial judgement. Demonstrate resilience, personal accountability and a strong delivery mindset, particularly when managing multiple deadlines or ambiguous requirements. Act as a constructive challenger in the bid room, helping teams sharpen the proposition, evidence the solution and focus on what will matter most to evaluators. Building Avencera's bid capability Support the development and embedding of Avencera's bid management methodology , templates, qualification governance, review disciplines and ways of working. Build and maintain a high-quality library of reusable content, case studies, credentials, standard responses and evidence, ensuring it remains current and outcome-focused . Capture customer feedback, evaluator comments, lessons learned and win/loss insights to improve future submissions. Coach colleagues in writing stronger, more customer-focused bid content and in contributing effectively to bid development. Supporting business development and capture activity Support, rather than own, business development activity by providing bid expertise into pursuit planning, opportunity qualification and bid/no-bid recommendations. Support the Growth Director and market teams to improve conversion from pipeline to contract award through better qualification, capture discipline, win themes and proposal quality. Contribute to new business outcomes through successful bid leadership and high-quality submissions; where a measure of success will be via win rates and technical quality scores. Person specification You are an experienced bid professional who combines excellent writing skills with commercial awareness and strategic thinking. You understand what differentiates winning bids and enjoy working with senior stakeholders to develop compelling proposals. You are likely to have built your career in a management consultancy, major government supplier or strategic outsourcer of a professional services organisation delivering public sector contracts. You will be comfortable with having a personal sales target which is achieved by writing winning bids that secure new business for Avencera . You will be able to evidence : A proven track record of writing successful bids for UK public sector contracts. Strong knowledge of public sector procurement and competitive tendering. Exceptional writing, editing and communication skills. Experience managing complex bids involving multiple contributors. Strong project management and organisational skills. Ability to challenge, influence and work confidently with senior stakeholders. A relentless focus on quality, continuous improvement and winning. Package Basic sala ry of £7 0,000 - £80,000 per annum d epending on expertis e . Up to 20% bonus based on firm and individual performance. 27 days’ annual leave, excluding bank holidays, rising to 30 based on performance. Private medical and dental insurance. 4% pension contributions.