Associate Commercial Specialist - Health & Assessment Services Category

Job summary

DWP works on some of the most important and exciting policies in government. We are proud of our work and want to offer applicants the opportunity to get involved in our ambitious agenda to improve outcomes for millions of citizens in the UK; throughout their lives, in the workplace, and in retirement.

DWP is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. Consequently, DWP impacts everyone in the UK, delivering services to help jobseekers find work, assist with a disability, or provide support for retirement.

If you like to be challenged, you’ll feel at home with us in DWP Commercial Directorate as we’re one of the largest Government Commercial functions, with stretching challenges and a real opportunity to make a difference to the lives of our customers.

Within DWP, the Commercial Directorate (CD) is an award-winning commercial function, with a unified team of culture focused on commercial excellence and continuous improvement. CD shapes how services are delivered across hundreds of third-party contractual arrangements, with some of the largest industry suppliers.

DWP’s CD is divided into several categories, which includes the Health & Assessment Services category. These Commercial Categories are based across our Blackpool, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester Commercial Hubs.

These Categories provide critical services to DWP and its customers, enabling them to effectively deliver its objectives on behalf of the Secretary of State, through effective management of the end-to-end procurement lifecycle and directing the Department’s strategies for commercial delivery.

Job description

This is an exciting time to join CD, as we are seeking experienced commercial professionals to lead in the delivery of the business strategy and be responsible for delivery of key procurement and contract management outcomes within the team. This role offers attractive long-term career opportunities within supportive and engaging working environments, alongside a range of excellent employee benefits. We require driven and dynamic individuals able to achieve results in a challenging but rewarding commercial environment. You will contribute to the development of Category expertise within the team, and increase the level of commerciality, operational execution, and stakeholder/supplier engagement. Your role will be to support one of the above categories and will require you to be passionate about creating change, taking a leadership role in the development of an enhanced Category management capability. You will have the skills to challenge, inspire, and lead others in a complex landscape of departmental transformation.

Locations
The successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. When selecting your location listed in this job advert please be aware that this will be your contractual base location with a requirement to spend a minimum of 60% of your working time in this organisational workplace.

Your time spent on official duties at workplace locations other than your contractual office such as supplier, customer or partner locations required to perform your role is included in the 60% attendance.

This requirement will however take into consideration any reasonable adjustments agreed upon appointment for people with a disability, flexibilities agreed for those with specific caring responsibilities, or other similar temporary flexibilities.

Person specification

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead on the development of commercial strategies, influencing operational thinking early on and working alongside other DWP and cross government teams i.e. HR, Legal, Finance, GCA etc to develop optimum solutions aligned to operational ambition
• Strong commercial management of strategic suppliers (existing and new), promoting robust partnership working to deliver complex operational strategies at pace and effective performance management during the full contract lifecycle.
• Proven ability to drive value for money to the taxpayer in all commercial agreements, changes and negotiations led for the department.
• Build category expertise and knowledge to deliver category plans and strategies that deliver high quality commercial procurement outcomes, whilst ensuring value for money and meeting operational imperatives.
• Lead a diverse team of commercial colleagues, ensuring they have the relevant skills and capability to deliver the category pipeline and the forthcoming Procurement Regulation changes, through coaching and mentoring, strong decisive leadership and provision of practical support and guidance.
• Deliver an annually agreed savings target for the category portfolio and to achieve this target through performance management of staff, suppliers and working collaboratively with stakeholders.
• Proven resilience and political astuteness in managing senior stakeholders, influencing operational strategies from the outset and working collaboratively with colleagues to develop agreed commercial pipelines and plans, whilst undertaking strong authentic business partnering.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Proven track record of understanding risk and protecting the business through adopting a mindset that achieves the best results by making appropriate risk-based decisions.
• Demonstrates clear leadership through commercial challenges, ensuring complex operational requirements are fully understood and effectively secured through contracts (procured/negotiated) and aligned to operational intent.
• Influence key stakeholders towards commercial solutions to deliver strategy and commercial performance. Demonstrate commercial and risk management of strategic contracts, securing value for money to meet stakeholder needs.
• Evidence of working well under pressure, responding positively to challenge whilst leading numerous strategic demands in a timely manner aligned to operational needs and the commercial pipeline.
• Experience of building strong relationships with stakeholders and suppliers, maximising commercial influence over strategy development and pipeline delivery with particular focus on influencing decision making at a senior level.
• Experience of resolving disputes, negotiating solutions and/or addressing & resolving poor performance on strategic contracts through effective supplier and stakeholder engagement and communication, leading to a positive outcome.

Benefits

As a valued employee of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), you will have access to all the benefits the centre has to offer; including flexible working, generous benefits, Career Coaches, Mentors, L&D, a Commercial College, active talent management and, most importantly, access to commercial projects that will far exceed the scale and complexity on offer elsewhere in the UK.

For existing Civil Servants: For full details of the impact on any move across the civil service on your existing terms and conditions, please read the candidate pack. Please note that any move across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to continue to claim childcare vouchers.

Kindly refer to the following link for the GCF Rewards and benefits page.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-benefits/

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Your application will be reviewed by a panel and should you be successful at sift we will invite you to attend a Virtual commercial Assessment and Development Centre (VADC). The panel will review results of the VADC and determine which candidates will go through to a subsequent final panel interview.

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on 18 May 2026 and will require a full day's attendance.

If you are invited to attend a virtual ADC, but for any reason are unable to meet the date outlined then please get in touch with the team on commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible. The ADC is booked and paid for in advance by departments, therefore it is only in certain circumstances we are able to accommodate alternative dates.

For full details of our process, and a likely timeline, please read the attached candidate pack.

Throughout our selection process, we will make decisions about your capability to do the job, based on evidence you provide against the Technical Skills (essential criteria) and your Job History (CV) that you will be asked to provide during the application process. Further help and advice on our application and selection process can be found at this web address https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-how-to-apply/

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/artificial-intelligence-and-re…

IMPORTANT: If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your application within 2 working days please contact: commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Ashlene Doherty
• Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should direct this to the Head of Commercial Resourcing Hub at the following email commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk quoting the vacancy reference number (if applicable) and the details of your complaint. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission via the following web page: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…

Attachments

458237 - Associate Commercial Specialist - Health & Assessment Services Category - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 1983kB)Guaranteed Interview Schemes (GIS) Opens in new window (pdf, 70kB)