Business Development Manager (Water Market)

Our client is one of the world’s most respected design, engineering, project management and building services consultancies. They are currently looking for an experienced Business Development Manager to join their Water Market team on a permanent basis. The role can be located in Birmingham, Warrington, Leeds, London, Surrey, Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow (potentially other-flexible)  

Job Description:  

Reporting to the Water Market Director, the Business Development Manager will work collaboratively to identify, position for, and secure business-critical ‘Priority Pursuits’ that will deliver growth.  

As Business Development Manager you will play a key role in the development of a sustainable, long-term pipeline of new business sales opportunities within the Water Market. In doing so you will enhance visibility of Priority Pursuits, creating time for the effective market positioning, client engagement, and capture planning activities, which are critical steps to securing the win.  

Main Responsibilities:  

- Produce Business and Management Intelligence reports (including sales pipeline/funnel, forecast annual revenue performance against budget, and sales performance, to enable informed decision making.  

- Extend the duration of the new business pipeline through identification of new business opportunities with long lead-ins, including, where possible, engagement with external market events and conferences.  

- Identify, in collaboration with the Water Market team, ‘Priority Pursuit’ opportunities that are critical to delivery of the Water Market’s strategic growth objectives.  

- Provide oversight of work-winning activities on all Priority Pursuits and provide regular updates to the Water Market Director on progress and key issues.  

- Take a lead role in Capture Planning ‘campaigns’ for Priority Pursuits, ensuring these are properly planned, supported, and resourced, such that they result in the development of compelling, differentiating, and validated Customer Value Propositions and Win Strategies.  

- Provide a robust handover to the Bid Director and Bid Manager at the appropriate point in the win-work process and ensure that the responsibilities of bid delivery roles are clearly understood.  

- Support the Bid Director and Bid Manager to be well-prepared for Governance Stage Gates.  

- Maximise the quality of submitted proposals for Priority Pursuits by ensuring the implementation of best-practice processes, and the deployment of specialist internal and external resources.  

- Act as Proposal Manager for selected Priority Pursuits to facilitate win theme and answer planning sessions, draft (and coach others to draft) compelling proposal responses, coordinate proposal reviews, and manage proposal production.

- Sound understanding of the UK regulated and non-regulated water sectors, including key clients, drivers, trends, external influences, and competitors.  

- Familiarity with CRM systems (e.g., Microsoft Dynamics 365) and experience of using outputs to compile, analyse, and derive trends and recommendations.  

- A proven track record of taking major bids through Capture Planning, Pre-Qualification, Tender, Negotiation, and Handover stages.  

- Ability to engage with, influence, and challenge a broad range of stakeholders, including Senior Managers and Subject Matter Experts.  

- Appreciation of individuals’ behavioural styles and ability to flex approach to motivate and derive best value outcomes from their contributions.  

- A passion for developing compelling propositions that maximise value to the clients and their customers and partners.  

- Commercial awareness of the potential conflicts between value propositions and price.  

- Ability to work as part of a remote multi-disciplined team.  

- Result/outcome-orientated with strong organisational and time-management skills.  

- Ability to work under pressure whilst retaining focus on, and passion for, delivery to time, cost, and quality.  

- Ability to think creatively and contribute new, innovative ideas and ways of working to generate efficiencies in work-winning and to enhance the quality of the value propositions.