Senior Contract Manager Advisor

Overview

The role:

Are you a commercially minded contract management professional looking to make a real impact? We are seeking a Senior Contract Management Advisor to join our Contract Management Support Service (CMSS). You will provide expert advice and practical support on medium to high-risk contract management activities across a diverse portfolio, including procurement, concessions, timber sales, energy contracts, grants, leases, and management agreements.

You’ll work closely with contract managers across the organisation, supporting them through the full contract lifecycle—from early scoping and mobilisation to delivery, performance management, risk and change control, and exit planning. By ensuring compliance with governance, data security, anti-fraud, and sustainability obligations, you will help protect organisational interests while delivering value for money and effective risk mitigation.

In addition to hands-on contract support, the Senior Advisor will mentor and coach colleagues, strengthening commercial capability and promoting best practice. The post contributes to NRW's strategic aims by improving ways of working, driving consistency and efficiency, and embedding robust governance and commercial standards across the organisation. This role sits at the heart of how NRW delivers its outcomes and offers the opportunity to influence how contracts are managed across the organisation, support colleagues to succeed, and ensure robust governance and commercial best practice underpin our work.

If you're motivated by collaboration, professional excellence, and making a difference through effective contract management, we'd love to hear from you.

We support flexible working. You will be contracted to the nearest NRW office to your home and a suitable hybrid working pattern will be agreed on appointment. Any regular face-to-face meetings or training will be planned in advance.

To make an informal enquiry about this role, please contact Peter Lees at Peter.

Lees.

Interviews will take place in week commencing 2 March 2026 through Microsoft Teams. Successful applicants will be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service Check (DBS). Appointments are normally made within 4 to 8 weeks of the closing date.

The Contract Management Support Service (CMSS) sits within the Customer, Communication & Commercial Directorate and provides specialist contract management and commercial advisory support across NRW. The team works collaboratively across the organisation and with external partners, influencing internal and external stakeholders and contributing to the development of policy and best practice. CMSS is based in a flexible, primarily office-based working environment, supporting delivery across NRW sites and partner premises, with activities that may include delivering training, workshops, and presentations.

CMSS is an enabling service focused on improving governance, commercial capability, and consistency of practice. Team members operate in specialist advisory roles at Grade 6, reporting to the Team Leader, CMSS Team 2, with no direct line management responsibility but acting as mentors to less experienced colleagues and leading non-complex technical programmes through matrix management.

• Support Contract Managers on medium to high risk contract management activities, advising on contract management process, governance, and outcomes throughout the contract management life cycle.
• Provide specialist advice and guidance to manage commercial and sustainability risk, to improve ways of working and drive efficiency, evidenced by improved value for money.
• Ensure internal and external compliance with requirements e.g. data security, anti-fraud measures, and supply chain sustainability, challenging instances of non-compliance.
• Hold accountability under Managing our Money (NRW's financial scheme of delegation), ensuring robust, compliant and value-for-money outcomes, with the ability to work autonomously and make decisions when needed.
• Build and maintain influential and collaborative relationships with internal customers to ensure awareness of opportunities, risks, and best practice relevant to contract management, influencing the work of internal customers to deliver positive outcomes.
• Manage the structured transition between contract award and service delivery, communicating with stakeholders.
• Mentor and coach others on commercial procedures, practices and techniques, equipping them with knowledge and skills to deliver their work effectively.
• Undertake and obtain the CMPC expert qualification within 18 months of appointment if not already qualified to that level.
• Undertake health and safety duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post.
• Commit to Natural Resources Wales Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy, and understand how it operates within the post’s responsibilities.
• Commit to your own development through the effective use of your personal development plan (Sgwrs).
• Any other…