Bid Manager, Management

Location:

Manor Royal Crawley, United Kingdom

Thales people provide armed forces customers with operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defence mission systems solutions at land, sea, and air. Our platforms extend across the battlespace including Above and Sonar, Electronic Combat, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space. Your health and well‑being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you;

whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Senior Bid Manager

Crawley - hybrid working arrangement – 3 days per week on site

Are you an experienced Bid Manager looking to take on a dynamic and pivotal role within a leading global organisation? Thales DMS ISR UK is seeking a talented professional to join our team and lead a variety of new and existing UK and international contract growth opportunities. You will play a key role in managing all aspects of bid delivery, bringing structure, clarity, and governance to the bid process while ensuring effective stakeholder engagement and high‑quality business‑winning proposals.

This is a unique opportunity to apply your commercial awareness, business acumen, and multi‑disciplinary leadership skills to maximise Thales’ position and secure exciting new business.

• Competitive salary and benefits package including performance‑related bonus, half‑day every Friday, 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) and opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata), 24 hours volunteering paid for, private healthcare, pension scheme, life cover, 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app, employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers, gym membership discounts.

• Provide structure, clarity, and governance to all bid management activities, ensuring rigorous processes and discipline.
• Lead and manage the preparation, review, and submission of high‑quality bid deliverables and proposals.
• Collaborate closely with Capture Leaders and bid teams to develop compelling win themes aligned with customer needs and Thales’ strengths.
• Oversee cost estimation and budgeting processes with relevant stakeholders to ensure competitive and winning pricing.
• Support the Sales/Capture Lead the preparation of business cases, customer presentations, and negotiations.

• A proven track record of managing successful bids in contexts relevant to Thales (Defence, Heavy Engineering, Manufacturing), ideally in a complex, multidisciplinary, multi‑site organisation.
• Can demonstrate the ability to construct solutions that meet the markets need both commercially and technically.
• Full business lifecycle management, including capture, qualification and developing capture plans and winning strategies.
• Extensive client and stakeholder management.
• Comprehensive understanding of generic processes and techniques used to schedule bid management activities.
• Comprehensive experience and understanding of the Bid Management process (including Change Control, Risk Management and Information Management).
• Comprehensive experience and knowledge of the bid life cycle.
• Experience of working across boundaries, including knowledge of commercial management, finance functions.
• Has as a minimum a working knowledge of industry standard approaches to bid management (such as Shipley Capture Bench).

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National…