Head of Commercial Contracts - Estates Development

About us UCL is one of the world’s leading multidisciplinary universities, with more than 18,000 staff and over 51,000 students from more than 150 countries. Alongside our global reputation for teaching and research, we manage a significant and complex commercial environment, spending more than 900 million each year with third-party suppliers.

Commercial & Procurement Services plays an important role in ensuring this investment delivers maximum value for UCL. Within Estates Development, we support an extensive portfolio of capital investment and development activity, working with colleagues and suppliers to strengthen commercial performance, manage risk and deliver sustainable long-term value.

As we continue to develop our in-house commercial capability, we are looking for an experienced commercial contracts professional to help shape how some of our most important Estates Development contracts are managed.

About the role

As Head of Commercial Contracts – Estates Development, you will provide senior commercial leadership across a portfolio of strategic, high-value and business-critical supplier contracts.

Reporting to the Director of Supply Chain – Estates Development, you will take a proactive approach to contract lifecycle management, ensuring contracts continue to deliver value for money, strong service performance and appropriate commercial and contractual protection for UCL.You will lead supplier governance and strategic supplier relationships, oversee commercial negotiations and contractual change, and use performance and financial insight to identify opportunities to improve value, reduce cost and strengthen outcomes.

You will also take a lead role in managing commercial and supply-chain risk, resolving contractual and supplier performance issues and ensuring appropriate governance and controls are in place.

Working closely with Category Management, Finance, Legal, operational stakeholders and suppliers, you will help establish consistent, data-led commercial contract management practices and contribute to the continued development of UCL’s commercial capability.

About youYou will be an experienced senior commercial or contract management professional with significant experience of managing, negotiating and improving complex contracts within a large, complex or regulated organisation.

You will bring strong knowledge of contract lifecycle management, supplier governance, commercial and financial management, risk and value-for-money delivery.

Experience of contract forms and mechanisms relevant to Estates, such as JCT, NEC or facilities management contracts, will be important.

You will be confident leading supplier negotiations, managing contractual change and resolving complex commercial or performance issues. Strong analytical skills will enable you to interrogate financial and performance information, challenge costs and commercial assumptions, and translate data into clear insight for senior decision-makers.

Just as importantly, you will be a credible and collaborative senior stakeholder manager, comfortable advising and constructively challenging colleagues and suppliers. You will bring the leadership and commercial judgement needed to strengthen supplier accountability, improve ways of working and help UCL build a high-performing commercial contract management capability.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:
• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
• Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme
• Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
• Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
• Immigration loan
• Relocation scheme for certain posts
• On-Site nursery
• On-site gym
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
• Employee assistance programme:
Staff Support Service
• Discounted medical insurance

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Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent.

We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.