Commissioning Officer (Children and Families) in Alconbury

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Children's Commissioning Team as a Commissioning Officer. This is a varied and rewarding role supporting the commissioning, contract management and development of services for children, young people and families across Cambridgeshire. Working alongside senior commissioning colleagues and partners across Children's Services, Education, Health and the voluntary and community sector, you will help ensure that commissioned services are high quality, deliver positive outcomes and provide value for money.

The role offers an excellent opportunity for someone with commissioning experience, or transferable skills from related fields, who is looking to develop their career in commissioning while contributing to services that make a real difference to children and families across the county.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Support the Commissioning Manager and Senior Commissioning Officer in the commissioning and contract management of a varied portfolio of services for children, young people and families, including services such as Translation and Interpretation, Young Carers, Mediation and Dispute Resolution, Children's Advocacy, Children's Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy Services.
• Work with providers, partners and stakeholders to support monitoring service performance and ensure commissioned services achieve agreed outcomes.
• Gather, analyse and interpret data, market intelligence, carry out benchmarking and review stakeholder feedback to inform commissioning decisions and identify opportunities for service improvement.
• Support commissioning projects and procurement activity, including inputting into the development of specifications, contributing to tender processes and implementing service improvements.
• Build and maintain positive working relationships with providers across the voluntary, community and independent sectors.
• Contribute to the development of commissioning strategies, business cases and reports.
• Research legislation, policy, guidance and best practice to ensure commissioning activity remains responsive to local and national priorities.
• Support the development of innovative and sustainable services that improve outcomes for children, young people and families while delivering value for money.

About you

You will have a passion for improving outcomes for children, young people and families and an interest in developing and improving services that make a real difference to people's lives. You will bring experience of working with partners and stakeholders to support service delivery, improvement or commissioning activity, or be able to demonstrate transferable skills gained in a related field. You will be confident in analysing information and data and using evidence to support recommendations and decision-making. Strong written and verbal communication skills are essential, with the ability to present information clearly and concisely and adapt your approach to suit a range of audiences. You will be able to build positive working relationships and collaborate effectively with colleagues, partners and service providers to achieve shared objectives. Strong organisational skills are important, as you will be required to manage competing priorities, work to deadlines and maintain a high standard of work across a varied workload. You will be a proactive problem solver who is able to identify opportunities for service improvement and contribute positively to commissioning activity and project work. You will also be comfortable working independently as well as part of a team, demonstrating flexibility, initiative and a willingness to learn and develop within the role.

Please use your supporting statement to outline how your skills and experience match the Essential criteria outlined in the attached Job Description/Person Specification.

Interviews for this role will be held 3rd September 2026.

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes. Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do. We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities.

If you don't meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don't be put off. We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered.

We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action. We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager to discuss any adjustment needs.

Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy.