Bid Manager

Job description

Location: Crawley, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across five major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Ground Transportation, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that's why we offer you the flexibility to do what's important to you; whether that's part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Job title: Bid Manager

Location : Crawley, Reading or Bristol - hybrid working arrangement (3 days per week in the office vs. 2 days from home)

The Opportunity:

Are you an experienced Bid Manager who enjoys team collaboration and problem solving? Are you looking for your next opportunity with excellent learning and exposure prospects, working on a wide range of bids across the company? At Thales we offer a great opportunity to use your talents and experience to lead and deliver high value, varied bids within a high performing bid organisation.

What the role has to offer:

• The opportunity to work within one of Thales UK's fastest growing and highest profile organisations, with excellent opportunities to raise your profile and broaden your network.
• The opportunity to work across multiple Thales National Entities, gain experience of a wide variety of product lines and their integration to support the capability development of Navies around the world.
• Full representation and accountability for leading large, complex bids
• An opportunity to develop and promote Thales bid competitiveness internally as well as externally (customers and consortia)
• Allows you to be instrumental in driving the transformational change that will lead Thales into an exciting future.
• Working with a high performing team who will support your learning and development
• Hybrid working (3 days in the office / 2 days from home)

Core Benefits:

On offer is a competitive salary and benefits package, which includes;

• Performance-related bonus
• Half day every Friday
• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) plus opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)
• 24 hours paid volunteering
• Private healthcare (grade dependent)
• Pension scheme
• Life cover
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app
• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers
• Gym membership discounts

Key responsibilities:

• Embedding a strong sense of delivery accountability and a proactive risk and opportunity management culture (for both 'winability' and 'deliverability') at all levels of the Bid team
• Creating and controlling the Bid schedule and resource plan; leading and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams to achieve key milestones and on time proposal submissions while adhering to Thales processes.
• Coordination of proposal development, including the use of colour reviews as appropriate
• Establishing and controlling the requirements baseline (technical and non-technical), including compliance traceability, allocation to Work Packages and the end to end estimating process
• Ensuring the creation of robust Initial Project Baselines for delivery post-contract award
• Tailoring and application of Bid Governance, including Bid Stage Gates, Bid Reviews and Project Characterisation
• Coordination and control of the Master Assumptions, Dependencies and Exclusions List (MADEL),
• Ensuring appropriate focus on cash management and achieving a positive net cash profile associated with the Initial Project baseline
• Promoting and enabling left-shifting E.g. solutions options and selection, Make/Team/Buy decisions, Project execution strategies
• Leading and coordinating PQQ responses, including reviews, governance and final sign-off

About you:

• A proven track record of leading successful multi-entity high value and strategic bids
• Familiarity with best practice including Shipley process.
• Experience in leading, motivating and influencing multi-disciplinary and international teams
• Experience managing internal stakeholders and customer/supplier/partner relationships
• A proactive, can-do attitude to seek out solutions and maximise customer value
• Experience constructing compelling proposals and/or solutions that meet customer needs
• Efficiently applying formal bid gate reviews, ensuring that business risk is appropriately managed
• Experience working in a complex, multi-site and international organisation
• A willingness to travel to customer sites, both in the UK and abroad.

#LI-DNI

In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

Great journeys start here, apply now!