Senior Commercial Manager - Pre Contracts

This is a 12 month fixed‑term contract. We support flexible working requests and have adopted a hybrid approach for most of our office‑based roles. Employees are expected to be present in the office at least three days per week.

Key Responsibilities

• The Senior Commercial Manager – Pre‑Contracts leads all commercial and contractual aspects of the bidding process across the portfolio, ensuring tenders are commercially robust, competitively priced, and aligned with the organisation’s risk appetite and strategic objectives.
• This role plays a critical part in securing new contracts through effective leadership of pre‑contract activities, stakeholder coordination, and risk management.
• Lead the preparation and submission of high‑quality commercial proposals across the service portfolio.
• Ensure compliance with client requirements and internal governance, including Delegation of Authority and Risk Review processes.
• Coordinate cross‑functional inputs – technical, legal, finance, tax, operations – required for commercial deliverables during bid development.
• Develop competitive pricing strategies aligned with market conditions and company objectives for all RFI, ITT, and other proposals submitted to customers.
• Develop and lead cost estimates, financial models, and pricing assumptions to ensure accuracy and profitability.
• Provide commercial input into bid/no‑bid decisions.
• Lead the design of innovative commercial and sub‑contracting structures and arrangements through internal processes and subsequently to the market across the Asset Solutions portfolio.
• Proactively work with other service line teams and functions to develop differentiated commercial offerings that maximise value to the client.
• Optimize commercial terms to enhance value while mitigating risk.
• Lead the identification of partnering requirements, selection and associated agreements.
• Coordinate the review and negotiation of contract terms and conditions.
• Identify, assess and mitigate commercial and contractual risks.
• Develop risk registers and recommend mitigation strategies.
• Ensure alignment with company policies, business contract protocols, and any local or regulatory requirements.
• Identify and implement opportunities to support the development of all proposals.
• Act as the primary commercial interface with clients during the tender phase.
• Collaborate with internal departments including legal, procurement, finance and operations.
• Support senior leadership with commercial insights and reporting.
• Ensure adherence to internal approval processes, due diligence, compliance and delegation of authority.
• Maintain audit‑ready documentation for all tendering activities.
• Ensure all tender approvals are properly documented and retained.
• Mentor and develop commercial pre‑contracts team members.
• Foster a high‑performance culture focused on accountability and continuous improvement.
• Develop and maintain common pricing workbooks, CTR formats and rate catalogues.
• Prepare detailed handover documents for new contract awards, including key risks and mitigations identified at the tender stage, flow‑down terms for supply‑chain procurement, pricing narrative and application guidance, and margin expectations from bid approvals.
• Ensure the annual audit programme is conducted with the Contracts team to manage all approval actions and conditions during contract execution.
• Conduct benchmarking to keep pricing books aligned with live market trends and KPI performance.

Essential Qualifications and Skills

• Degree‑level qualification in an appropriate commercial, legal, or business discipline.
• Experience in the oil and gas sector with excellent understanding of operations services, well management, brown‑field projects, and engineering, construction, decommissioning contracts and commercial structures; demonstrable ability to apply innovative solutions.
• Track record of leading successful commercial or contracts teams.
• Strong commercial acumen and financial analysis capability.
• Advanced negotiation and contract‑drafting skills.
• Deep understanding of risk allocation and mitigation strategies.
• Excellent leadership and stakeholder‑management abilities.
• High attention to detail with strategic thinking capability.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Good familiarity with, and experience of, the upstream oil and gas sector.
• Good knowledge of culture and business practices.
• Familiarity with asset operations, asset management/development, consultancy, engineering and well management/operations.
• Broad commercial skills and familiarity with a range of commercial contract structures.
• Self‑starter, organised and capable of handling multiple simultaneous tasks.
• Strong relationship‑building and calm under pressure.
• Understanding of financial markets and third‑party financing.