Business Consulting Manager in Manchester

Are you looking for a role where you can help shape and grow a consulting practice while delivering meaningful outcomes for some of the UK’s most important Aerospace, Defence and Industrial clients?

As an Aerospace Business Consultant, you'll join a growing Aerospace Consulting practice at an exciting stage of development. This is a varied role that combines consulting delivery with business development, opportunity management, proposal development and internal collaboration, giving you exposure to both client work and the ongoing growth of the practice. You'll work closely with clients and colleagues across Sopra Steria, helping to build capability, improve ways of working and contribute to the future success of the business.

Our work is highly collaborative and client-facing. Consultants are typically expected to spend 2 to 3 days per week on client site or in the office, primarily across the Bristol, Manchester and Chester regions. This approach provides flexibility while supporting strong client relationships, effective teamwork and high-quality delivery.

For someone looking to broaden their consulting career, this role offers exposure to business development, proposal management, Artificial Intelligence-enabled consulting approaches and future practice leadership opportunities.

What you’ll be doing:

• Deliver high-quality consulting assignments across Aerospace, Defence, Manufacturing and Industrial clients, supporting transformation, operational improvement and business change programmes.
• Support opportunity management activities, helping to identify, qualify and progress consulting opportunities through the sales lifecycle.
• Contribute to the development of proposals, statements of work, customer presentations and business development initiatives.
• Support the development of consulting processes, governance, reusable assets and scalable ways of working across the Aerospace Consulting practice.
• Develop and apply Artificial Intelligence-enabled approaches to improve productivity, analysis, knowledge management and consulting delivery.
• Build strong relationships across clients, account teams and consulting communities to connect opportunities with the right expertise and resources.

What you’ll bring:

• Experience within Aerospace, Manufacturing, Industrial Operations or a related sector.
• Experience working within consulting, programme delivery, transformation, operational improvement or Project Management Office environments.
• Experience supporting bids, proposals, customer presentations or business development activities.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to coordinate multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Commercial awareness and the ability to build effective relationships across client organisations and internal teams.

It would be great if you had:

• Direct aerospace industry experience.
• Existing Ministry of Defence Developed Vetting clearance.
• Experience in manufacturing transformation, operational excellence, supply chain or digital transformation.
• Knowledge of framework agreements, procurement processes or regulated environments.
• Experience supporting resource planning, mobilisation or delivery governance activities.
• French language skills, with additional European languages such as German, Spanish or Italian also beneficial.

Although this role is advertised as full-time, we believe that flexibility at work can promote work/life balance, increase your motivation, reduce stress and improves performance and productivity. We support different ways of working and can offer a range of flexible working arrangements.

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent.

Location: Bristol, Manchester or Chester (hybrid working with 2 to 3 days per week on client site or in the office).

Security Clearance Level: Security Check clearance with eligibility to obtain Developed Vetting.

Salary: £70,000 - £90,000.

Benefits:

• 10% bonus
• £5,400 car allowance
• 25 days annual leave with the option to buy additional days
• private medical
• life assurance
• pension
• generous flexible benefits fund

Sopra Steria’s Aerospace, Defence and Security business designs, develops and deploys digital solutions to Central Government clients. The work we do makes a real difference to the client’s goal of National Security, and we operate in a unique and privileged environment. We are given time for professional development activities, and we coach and mentor our colleagues, sharing knowledge and learning from each other. We foster a culture in which employees feel valued and supported and have pride in their work for the customer, delivering outstanding rates of customer satisfaction in the UK’s most complex safety- and security-critical markets.

We embrace difference as a source of creativity, innovation and competitive advantage and are striving to become a more diverse organisation. We welcome applications from people with a diverse variety of backgrounds and identities. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status. We have partnered with Vercida, the UK’s largest diversity and inclusion focused careers site, where all our vacancies are available in an accessible format.

If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, to enable you to perform to the best of your ability, please let us know when completing your application. We participate in the Disability Confident scheme and are committed to offering an interview to any candidate with a disability, who meets the minimum criteria for the role. If you believe this could apply to you, please let us know when completing your application.