Pursuits and Proposals Manager - Audit

We’re BDO. An accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today’s changing world. We work with the companies that are Britain’s economic engine – ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high growth businesses that fuel the economy - and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them.

Our Sales and Marketing team is being reshaped to directly support BDO’s growth ambitions. We’re building a high-performing function that is proud of its technical skills, reliable in delivery, and outcome-led in how we prioritise and execute. You’ll join a team big enough to offer diverse roles and opportunities, big priorities and commercial challenges, yet personal enough to ensure you’re supported and empowered from day one.

Here, we think beyond activity. You’ll bring ideas, fresh thinking and help shape how we deliver campaigns, insights and engagement across the business. Working closely with internal clients, you’ll deepen your understanding of our sectors and add value in your role. From strategic storytelling to capability building and smarter ways of working, you’ll grow your skills while working with people who care about doing the right thing and doing it well.

Leading organisations trust us because of the quality of our advice. That quality grows from a thorough understanding of their business, and that understanding comes from working closely with them and building long-lasting relationships. You’ll be someone who is both comfortable working pro-actively and managing your own tasks, as well as confident collaborating with others and communicating regularly with senior managers, directors, and BDO’s partners to help businesses effectively. You’ll be encouraged to identify and draw attention to opportunities for enhancing our delivery and providing additional services to organisations we work with.

The Pursuit and Proposal Manager supports the firm’s priority pursuits with a blend of coaching and hands-on proposal support. The role works on significant bids where disciplined governance, strong win themes and high-quality written submissions are required, partnering closely with pursuit leads to shape messaging and differentiation and to deliver a distinctive proposal and pitch approach. This role supports and contributes to coaching (often alongside a Grade 20 lead coach on the largest bids), while also taking a more active role in proposal development—working closely with designers, content owners and production support to strengthen the look, feel, structure and persuasiveness of the submission. The role is an expert in the “win it” stage and supports knowledge transfer to managers and senior managers involved in pursuits.

Key responsibilities

• Support development of win themes and differentiated messaging; ensure they are applied consistently across proposal and pitch materials.
• Identify evidence gaps and coordinate inputs from SMEs and asset sources to strengthen proof points.
• Contribute to competitor/buyer understanding and implications for how the team should position the response.
• Drive the proposal management process on assigned pursuits: workplan, contributors, deadlines, review cycles and actions.
• Shape the structure, narrative flow and clarity of the submission; edit and improve content for quality and buyer relevance.
• Work closely with Design/document production to ensure a professional, distinctive and consistent output.
• Support pitch preparation and rehearsal sessions: provide feedback on story, structure, roles and QandA.
• Coach managers/SMs on effective bid behaviours and standards, escalating where issues risk quality or readiness.
• Coordinate with Content/Markets Activation/Marketing teams where messaging alignment or campaign context is relevant.

You’ll be someone with

• Strong experience managing bids and proposals in a professional services or complex B2B environment.
• Ability to coach and influence stakeholders while also managing delivery and document quality.
• Strong writing/editing judgement and ability to shape persuasive narratives.
• Confident coordinating multiple contributors and deadlines; strong risk awareness.
• Comfortable supporting pitch preparation and rehearsals.

At BDO, we’ll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.

Mutual support and respect is one of BDO’s core values and we’re proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we’ll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs. Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you’ll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.

We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we’ve invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO’s people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we’ll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you’ll never stop learning at BDO.

At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy. Our success is powered by our people, which is why we’re always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions. We’ve got a clear purpose, and we’re confident in our future, because we’re adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and clarity, because we believe in empowering people to think creatively about how we can do things better.