Bid Manager

Overview

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Bid Manager

Department: Revenue Operations

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Bristol, UK

Reporting To: Hamish Rosser

Compensation: GBP 40,000 - GBP 60,000 / year

Description

We're building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience. At Rowden, we design and integrate advanced systems that sense, connect, and protect data in challenging environments where quick decisions are vital. Our solutions use intelligent automation to enhance speed and efficiency and are built to be reliable and straightforward for critical operations in remote or high-pressure settings.

Headquartered in Bristol (UK), we combine modern engineering methods with cutting-edge commercial technology to create adaptable, mission-critical systems. We focus on solving the tough challenges that others overlook, ensuring our customers can operate effectively in an ever-changing world.

To power our continued growth, we're looking for a Bid Manager to take ownership of our end-to-end bidding process. From pre-qualification through to contract signature, you'll play a pivotal role in securing the opportunities that matter, ensuring every submission reflects our strengths, differentiators, and commitment to end-users. As part of our continued growth, you'll get exposure to various customer groups across Defence, Emergency Response and National Security.

The role is not a traditional Bid Manager role. It requires someone who thrives in fast-paced, high-stakes environments, willing to contribute in areas beyond just bid management. You'll need to navigate complex procurement landscapes, drive internal collaboration, and apply relentless focus to improving how we bid, ensuring we continue to grow, learn, and deliver impact.

While this role offers hybrid working options, it requires a minimum of 3 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ.

Key responsibilities

Key areas of responsibility

As Rowden's Bid Manager, your core responsibilities will be to:

• Lead bid submissions from opportunity qualification to final submission, managing timelines, responsibilities, and outcomes.
• Develop and refine bid strategies, aligning closely with capture teams to define compelling win themes and customer messaging.
• Monitor and manage responses to UK government frameworks ensuring consistent and high quality submissions.
• Own and update our bid/content library, ensuring reusable material (e.g. case studies, CVs, rate cards, social value statements) is current and easily accessible.
• Facilitate go/no-go decisions, helping the business qualify opportunities quickly and with the right data.
• Drive continuous improvement, analysing win/loss data, gathering lessons learned, and evolving our bid approach.
• Keep up-to-date with industry trends and standards, incorporating new technologies into our bidding systems where needed.
• Champion process and knowledge management, from maintaining a clear audit trail to archiving outdated materials.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

What We Require

We are looking for someone who is passionate about bid or project management. You'll gain loads of experience in this role but before you do, you should have:

• Proven experience managing bids from opportunity assessment to submission, ideally in public sector tenders.
• Excellent project management skills, with the ability to handle multiple bids, balance priorities, and meet tight deadlines without compromising quality.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate and organise stakeholders both internally and externally.
• Strong copywriting and editing skills with a rigorous eye for detail.
• Familiarity with UK government procurement processes and frameworks is beneficial.

About you (aka, what we value)

The ideal candidate will show a strong balance of the following behavioural competencies that we believe are key to success in the role:

• Ownership & Accountability - Take full responsibility for the end-to-end bid process. Driving progress, anticipating challenges, and ensuring that deadlines and standards are met without needing constant oversight.
• Structured Communication - Conveys complex information clearly and persuasively, tailoring written and verbal communication to suit both technical and non-technical audiences. Brings clarity to ambiguity.
• Attention to Detail - Demonstrates a meticulous approach to reviewing and compiling bid documentation, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and consistency while working at pace.
• Adaptability & Resilience - Remains calm and focused in dynamic and time-sensitive environments, able to reprioritise quickly and respond positively to changing requirements, feedback, or constraints.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!

We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.

Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don't meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we'd still love to hear from you!

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