Senior Procurement and Contracts Manager
Department: Procurement and Contracts
Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time
Location: London
Compensation: £90,000 / year
Description
Salary: £90,000
Bonus: Discretionary
Location: Kings Cross, London (Tuesdays‑Thursdays – 3 days in our office, Monday + Friday – anywhere)
Employment Type: Permanent, full time
Closing Date: From 13th of May, we will transition to a rolling application process. The role will remain open until we have identified a strong shortlist of candidates for the interview stage.
At ARIA, we believe that breakthroughs are driven by people. As a member of the procurement and contracts team, you will be at the heart of our operational engine, acting as a bridge between Programme Directors, operational teams, and external partners, and ensuring every interaction is human, thoughtful, and engaging.
What you’ll do
- Design and deliver funding and procurement approaches: Work at pace with Programme Directors to shape and deliver funding mechanisms from early concept through to award.
- Support programmes as they evolve: Partner with teams post‑award, helping adapt contracts and funding structures as programmes pivot, scale, or change direction.
- Manage contracts with purpose: Oversee the end‑to‑end lifecycle of contracts, ensuring clarity, fairness, and effectiveness. You create agreements that work in practice, not just on paper.
- Improve systems and ways of working: Continuously refine templates, processes, and guidance to make procurement and contracting simpler, smarter, and more scalable as ARIA grows.
- Enable innovation within a governance framework: Help navigate the balance between agility and accountability, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations while supporting novel and non‑traditional approaches.
Who you are
A successful candidate will bring many of the following skills/experience to the role:
Essential criteria
- High Autonomy: We don’t micromanage; we trust you to take full accountability, proactively identifying bottlenecks and building solutions before problems escalates.
- Agile & Adaptable: You thrive in environments where the “right way” isn’t always written down. You are comfortable operating in ambiguity, with a proactive, solutions‑focused mindset.
- Strong procurement commercial experience: You bring experience across procurement, commercial, contracts, or funding delivery. You’ve led open and competitive sourcing processes and know how to run them effectively in practice, not just in theory.
- Strong commercial judgement: You combine sharp attention to detail with sound judgement, navigating contractual terms and conditions with confidence while keeping broader outcomes in mind.
- Strong communication and relationship‑building: You build trust quickly and work effectively across multiple stakeholders and projects, ensuring alignment and momentum even in complex environments.
Desirable criteria
- Systems Thinker: You don’t just do tasks; you build systems to make everything run smoother.
- Cross‑Sector Experience: You’ve worked across both public and private sector environments and understand how to navigate different commercial, regulatory, and delivery contexts. You bring an appreciation for innovation‑driven settings, whether in research, technology, or fast‑moving organisations, and know how to adapt your approach accordingly.
- CIPS or equivalent
Benefits
- 27 days annual leave provision, with the option to buy/sell additional days
- Hybrid working arrangements; 60% in office / 40% at home
- Discretionary performance‑related pay
- Supportive environment for learning and development opportunities
- Enhanced family leave arrangements
- A free and confidential 24/7 employee assistance programme
- Life Assurance
- 2 days of paid volunteer days
- 5% defined contribution pension scheme with Smart Pension
- Cycle to Work scheme
- An excellent office location in Kings Cross, London
If you require any reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process, please notify us and we will make every effort to accommodate you. Disclosing any requests are intended to provide ARIA with the best opportunity to support candidates and will have no negative impact on your recruitment process.
ARIA adopts a highly considered approach to ethical and social responsibility. Our research and development activity will abide by the 3Rs principle.
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