Commercial Manager – ICP Pre-Construction

Base Location: You'll be expected to spend 50% of your working week in our Reading or Manchester office

Salary: £50,100 - £75,100 + performance-related bonus + a range of benefits to support your finances, wellbeing and family.

Working Pattern: Permanent | Full Time | Flexible First options available

The role

The Commercial Manager Pre-Contract plays a pivotal role within the ICP Business Unit by developing and negotiating the commercial proposition for electricity network infrastructure projects. The Commercial Manager will have overall responsibility for the development and delivery of commercial bids for new Independent Connection Provider (ICP) works, supporting the construction and delivery of new electricity network infrastructure across the UK.

The postholder will personally lead the drafting, negotiation and risk positioning of all bid‑stage contracts, ensuring contractual clarity, appropriate risk allocation and full commercial protection prior to submission and award. Alongside this, the role retains accountability for bid strategy, pricing integrity, governance and final commercial submissions. The postholder will also draft variation agreements for projects in construction, as required.

You will

• Own the end-to-end commercial strategy for ICP bids, from early opportunity development through to contract award. You will lead the commercial shaping of opportunities from the earliest engagement stage, influencing bid/no-bid decisions, route-to-market, contracting strategy and commercial positioning. This includes assessing client drivers, contract forms, delivery constraints and risk profile at feasibility stage, and determining whether opportunities align with the business’s risk appetite, margin expectations and workload strategy. You will ensure that commercial strategy is consistent and is clearly communicated to senior stakeholders.
• Personally draft, amend and finalise all upstream contracts and support procurement with downstream contract amendments. You will take personal ownership of drafting and negotiating all client-facing contracts at bid stage. This includes producing assumptions and qualifications as required to achieve balanced risk allocation. In parallel, you will work closely with procurement to ensure that downstream supply chain contracts appropriately mirror upstream risk, close gaps in liability, and fully protect the business. You are expected to personally produce and control the contractual documentation.
• Lead and control all contractual negotiations with clients and suppliers through to award. You will act as the commercial and contractual lead in all negotiations, setting negotiation strategy, defining red lines, and leading commercial discussions with clients and key suppliers. This includes chairing clarification meetings, managing commercial correspondence, responding to contractual challenges, and ensuring that any agreed changes are accurately captured in both contract wording and price. You will have the authority to push back on unacceptable risk transfer and to recommend withdrawal where commercial terms cannot be made acceptable
• Identify, assess and mitigate contractual risk, ensuring alignment between contract, scope, programme and price. You will be responsible for identifying all contractual, commercial and delivery risks inherent in each bid, including interface risk, programme risk, design development risk, regulatory risk and client-driven change risk. You will ensure that these risks are clearly understood, appropriately mitigated through contract drafting or commercial mechanisms, and fully reflected in pricing, contingencies and assumptions. A key expectation of the role is ensuring there is no disconnect between what is priced, what is contractually committed, and what can realistically be delivered.
• Lead the estimating function and sign off all project cost adjudications. You will provide senior leadership and commercial challenge to the estimating process, ensuring estimates are complete, robust and aligned with delivery methodology. This includes interrogating labour, plant, material and subcontractor pricing, validating programme assumptions, and ensuring that risk allowances, inflation, preliminaries and overhead recovery are appropriate for the business. You will formally sign off cost adjudications and ensure that estimating outputs properly reflect contractual risk, procurement strategy and margin targets. Close working with finance is expected to validate cashflow, margin, working capital and overall bid economics.
• Lead internal bid reviews and approvals, providing clear commercial and contractual recommendations to senior stakeholders. You will own the commercial narrative presented at bid reviews, governance gates and executive approvals. This includes clearly articulating risk exposure, key assumptions, exclusions, contingencies and commercial sensitivities. You will provide explicit recommendations on bid acceptance, pricing adjustments and commercial conditions for award. Senior leaders should have full confidence that risks are understood and controlled before bids are submitted or contracts are executed.
• Work closely with delivery, engineering, procurement, legal and finance to ensure aligned bid submissions. You will act as the central commercial integrator across all bid inputs, ensuring alignment between engineering design, construction methodology, programme, procurement strategy and commercial terms. This includes challenging unrealistic delivery assumptions, ensuring early constructability input, and confirming that the post-award delivery team can operate within the bid conditions proposed. The role is critical in avoiding downstream disputes by ensuring bids are technically sound, contractually clear and commercially coherent.

You have

• Senior commercial experience within ICP, utilities, power or civils infrastructure environments. You will bring significant experience within contracting-based engineering businesses, with a strong understanding of how commercial decisions at bid stage directly impact delivery performance, margin erosion and claims exposure.
• Proven track record of delivering successful competitive bids. You will have demonstrable experience of winning work in competitive tender environments, balancing pricing competitiveness with disciplined risk management. This includes experience of negotiating departures, qualifications and alternative commercial positions to secure award without exposing the business to unacceptable downside risk.
• Strong, demonstrable experience personally drafting and negotiating ICP and NEC contracts and bespoke amendments. You are expected to be a highly competent contract drafter and negotiator, comfortable working directly with bespoke contracts and NEC contracts. You should be able to confidently interpret contractual risk, identify unintended consequences, and propose legally and commercially robust solutions without over-reliance on legal advisors.
• Deep understanding of contractual risk and its impact on pricing, delivery and margin. You will have a strong grasp of how contractual mechanisms translate into cost, cashflow and margin outcomes during execution. This includes understanding the downstream impact of pain/gain provisions, compensation events, programme obligations, liability caps, and change mechanisms.
• Experience leading pre‑contract commercial teams and coordinating multi‑disciplinary bid inputs. You will be experienced in leading and influencing multidisciplinary bid teams, including estimators, engineers, planners and procurement professionals. You will be comfortable setting clear direction, challenging inputs, and driving deadlines to deliver high-quality tender submissions under time pressure

About SSE

SSE’s purpose is to provide energy needed today while building a better world of energy for tomorrow. We do this by developing, building, operating and investing in electricity infrastructure and businesses needed in the energy transition. Our Transforming for Growth investment plan sees us investing £33bn in critical electricity infrastructure across the five years to 2030.

Flexible benefits to fit your life

Enjoy discounts on private healthcare and gym memberships. Wellbeing benefits like a free online GP and 24/7 counselling service. Interest-free loans on tech and transport season tickets, or a new bike with our Cycle to Work scheme. As well as generous family entitlements such as maternity and adoption pay, and paternity leave.

Work with an equal opportunity employer

SSE will make any reasonable adjustments you need to ensure that your application and experience with us is positive. Please contact zoe.gillespie@sse.com to discuss how we can support you.

We're dedicated to fostering an open and inclusive workplace where people from all backgrounds can thrive. We create equal opportunities for everyone to succeed and especially welcome applications from those who may not be well represented in our workforce or industry.

Ready to apply?

Start your online application using the Apply Now box on this page. We only accept applications made online. We'll be in touch after the closing date to let you know if we'll be taking your application further. If you're offered a role with SSE, you'll need to complete a criminality check and a credit check before you start work.

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