Bid Manager

JOB TITLE:  Bid Manager.

SALARY: From £61,344pa plus the extensive benefits list below.

LOCATION: Edinburgh.

HOURS: Full-time. 

WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at our Edinburgh hub.

Insurance & Wealth 

Insurance and Wealth help personal and business customers with their long-term protection, retirement and investment needs. We support around 10 million customers with assets under administration of £155 billion and annuity payments in retirement of over £1 billion every year.  

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity within the Scottish Widows Bid Team. As a Bid Manager, you'll play a key role in retaining existing clients and winning new business opportunities in the Workplace pension market. You'll lead multiple strategic bids and retention activities from qualification through to submission, bringing together stakeholders from across the business to develop compelling, customer-focused responses. 

Alongside delivery of live opportunities, you'll help drive the evolution of our bid function by embracing AI, automation and continuous improvement initiatives that enhance efficiency, quality and scalability. Working closely with distribution teams, proposition specialists, subject matter experts and senior leaders, you'll help shape bid strategy, challenge thinking and ensure Scottish Widows is positioned in the strongest possible way to succeed. 

This is a varied and highly visible role that offers the opportunity to influence decision-making, develop deep market expertise and contribute to the future growth of the business. This role aligns with our ambition to build a high-performing, innovative and customer-focused bid function that delivers outstanding stakeholder and customer outcomes. 

Duties of the role include: 

• Leading the delivery of new business and retention opportunities from qualification through to submission. 
• Developing bid strategies, win themes and compelling customer-focused proposals.  
• Producing high-quality written responses, presentations and client-facing materials. 
• Managing relationships with stakeholders across sales, proposition and specialist teams. 
• Providing challenge and insight to strengthen customer outcomes and improve bid competitiveness.  
• Driving adoption of AI, automation and continuous improvement across bid activities. 
• Supporting the development of bid content, templates and knowledge assets. 
• Embedding lessons learned and best practice across future opportunities.  
• Coaching colleagues and contributing to team capability development   
• Ensuring opportunities are managed in line with agreed governance, systems and processes.   

Essential criteria, you'll need: 

• Proven bid management experience.
• Excellent written, verbal and presentation skills.  
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver under pressure.  
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills.  
• Commercial awareness and strong customer focus.  
• Experience developing proposals, tenders or client-facing submissions.  
• A track record of driving improvements and delivering positive change.  
• A collaborative approach and commitment to team success 

 Desirable criteria, that would help but aren't essential: 

• Knowledge of the workplace pensions market. 
• Experience of both new business and client retention activity. 
• Experience using AI, automation or bid technology solutions. 
• Knowledge of proposal automation or content management platforms. 

Why join us?

We’re on an exciting journey to transform our Group and the way we’re shaping finance for good. We’re focusing on the future, investing in our technologies, workplaces, and colleagues to make our Group a great place for everyone.

This is a place for you:

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion supporting our customers, colleagues and communities, and we’re committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer Initiative.

We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. And, as a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role with a disability, long-term health or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.

We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers. Just let us know what you need.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%.
• An annual performance-related bonus.
• Share schemes including free shares.
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping.
• 30 days holiday, with bank holidays on top.
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies.

Ready for a career where you’ll learn and thrive? Apply today and find out more.