Commercial & Procurement Manager – Defence & Government (Outside IR35)
Contract | Fully remote | Outside IR35
Duration: 15 Months | Start: January 2027
About the role
We’re recruiting on behalf of an agile, forward-thinking commercial function within a major UK Government department. The team was set up to make public sector acquisition faster, more user-centric, and more accessible to smaller and emerging suppliers. It is a genuinely disruptive team, with real freedom to work differently from traditional long-cycle procurement.
As a Commercial Pathfinder, you’ll have a dual remit: delivering hands-on commercial and procurement work on live programmes, while helping to shape and improve how the team itself operates. This is as much about building the model as it is about working within it.
What you’ll be doing
- Owning commercial delivery end to end, from early market engagement and sourcing strategy through to contract management and benefits realisation
- Building strong working relationships with programme stakeholders and advising on commercial and procurement strategy and routes to market
- Identifying, managing and resolving commercial risks, issues and dependencies
- Maintaining compliance with procurement regulations and approvals throughout
- Completing monthly MI reporting and tracking financial and non-financial benefits across your portfolio
- Feeding back on, and helping implement, improvements to commercial ways of working
What we’re looking for
- A defence background is essential. You must have commercial or procurement experience in the defence sector
- Solid commercial and procurement experience across the full acquisition lifecycle
- Working knowledge of public sector procurement regulations and compliance
- Comfort operating with ambiguity and helping define new processes, rather than following a fixed playbook
- Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to build credibility quickly at a senior level
- A genuine interest in faster, more agile approaches to public sector acquisition
- Active UK security clearance (SC or above)
- Comfortable working as an outside-IR35 contractor, fully remote
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