Commercial Lead - Procurement and Contract Management

Job summary

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in this role.

DCMS celebrates what makes life in the UK unique, recognising the vital role culture, arts, media, sport, tourism and civil society play in supporting the economy and shaping our image on the world stage. Our sectors are a powerful force for economic growth and opportunity, contributing £170 billion to the economy, supporting 4 million jobs and acting as a source of soft power and national pride. From the Premier League to the silver screen, our sectors are in huge demand around the world. This influence is what makes DCMS so integral to delivering the government’s mission led agenda.

Commercial is an agile and dynamic team with a positive and friendly culture. We prioritise kindness and respect, and we work closely together as a team to embrace change and drive continuous improvement. We support a dynamic department and supporting our family of Arm’s Length Bodies (ALB), we are on a commercial transformation journey, providing opportunities for commercial staff to get exposure to incredible national and policy programmes and make a difference.

DCMS is a comparatively small department with a big remit, which is replicated in the Commercial directorate.

We are there in the big moments of national life that bring us together – cheering on our athletes to gold, the Kings Coronation, the silent reflection of Remembrance Sunday - and in the community spirit of local charity volunteers. We are promoting the UK as the best place for digital investment and innovation, and as the safest place to be online and to start and grow a digital business. From the Arts Council to UK Sport, the DCMS family reaches across the country and into every community.

We look forward to receiving your completed application.

Kind regards,

Arun Vijan

Job description

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is seeking a Commercial Lead with demonstrable experience in procurement and contract management to bolster our commercial capability during a period of significant investment.

This opportunity is to work on the department’s Youth portfolio, specifically on the Better Youth Spaces programme which will deliver ~£350m of funding over 4 years. This programme will enable organisations working with young people to improve or expand their service offer through the provision of grants to enable new builds, refurbishments, capital equipment purchases and scheme development support. The grants will be delivered through an intermediary grant maker (IGM) that is yet to be appointed.

The key aspects to this role:

1. Procuring and providing contract management of external evaluator/assurance partners to provide independent scrutiny of the delivery of the scheme.
2. Closely working with the delivery team in the management of the IGM, utilising the contracts above to deliver the management outputs (MI) as per the Grant conditions.

To support this, you will build on the department's IGM delivery model through the addition of an external delivery assurance partner. You will lead the procurement and subsequent contract management of this new commercial relationship which will help ensure successful delivery of the scheme. You will play a key role in shaping and developing this relationship in line with best practice and DCMS standards.

You will also support and advise the wider team on any other procurement and contract management issues.

You will be supported in this role by a friendly team with a deep understanding of the youth policy area and a strong mix of policy, stakeholder and project delivery skills. The team have a strong track record of delivering successful grant-based programmes including GMPP level programmes and are looking to enhance their commercial capability.

The successful candidate will be expected to advise on commercial risk management, compliance, procurement regulations (PCR15 and PA23); drafting commercial strategies and commercial business cases. Proactively manage contracts across the business area up to and including gold tier, ensuring key performance indicator compliance and robust contract delivery.

This role will have the opportunity to engage with senior leaders and decision makers throughout the life of the programme. There will also be opportunities to ensure learnings are captured and embedded in the way the department approaches similar programmes in the future.

The role will work in a matrix management structure, working directly in the programme team and reporting into the Commercial Directorate for support, assurance and approvals on all commercial activity.

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

• You will actively promote DCMS Values, plan and oversee the professional development and training of any staff that you may have responsibility for in the core Commercial team.
• Assist in the development and management of key objectives for Commercial to help the Commercial Director to realise year-on-year savings in line with agreed targets and meeting agreed Service Levels with other government departments (e.g., ERG, CCS);
• Assist with the implementation and embedding of supplier relationship management and Contract Management processes in the department;

Important Information for existing Civil Servants:

This role is a 24-month fixed term appointment. Before you apply, please ensure you have spoken to your Line Manager and confirmed that you can be released on a loan agreement

Technical skills

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

• Proven experience identifying commercial and contractual risk, establishing risk mitigation processes and advising on solutions to senior colleagues.
• The ability to interact with multiple stakeholders, understand their requirements and policy/delivery landscape.
• Be able to demonstrate experience of developing relationships with senior stakeholders and ability to build relationships across an organisation and with key external stakeholders.
• Demonstrable public procurement experience (applying public procurement legislation) leading on multiple procurement strands that has helped deliver great value for money outcomes and great customer outcomes.
• Experience and knowledge managing public sector contracts. Can provide expert advice to commercial and non – commercial colleagues. Strong understanding of contract management activities, including developing and implementing performance monitoring.

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 Monday 23rd March 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-recruitment/
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 : Sean Kelly
• 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

Guaranteed Interview Schemes (GIS) Opens in new window (pdf, 64kB)448851 - Candidate Pack - DCMS - Commercial Lead - Procurement and Contract Management.docx Opens in new window (pdf, 698kB)