Commercial Officer

To accommodate this rapid growth in the sector, in 2019 the UK Space Agency stood up its in-house commercial capability. The successful candidate for the Commercial Officer role will therefore join a growing, agile and friendly team with the opportunity to make a great impact on how we engage with the marketplace and meet the demands of our customers. This will include a blend of commercial assurance and policy compliance audits and dealing with contracts and grant agreements. The priorities for the post holder will be to lead on & carry out policy compliance checks to provide commercial assurance. The post holder will also enable our projects and programmes by resolving procurement and grant queries and provide support to the Commercial Team and Assistant Director of Commercial.

The UK Space Agency Commercial Team has a strong culture of supporting personal growth and development, including support to undertake relevant qualifications in procurement and/or project management.

Duties will include, but are not limited to:

Managing the UK Space Agency Commercial inbox, helping to resolve commercial queries and triaging more complex matters to relevant Commercial Leads to support their resolution.
Supporting commercial activity within UK Space Agency, including low value and high value tenders and grant competitions.
Managing the UK Space Agency Commercial Share point area, taking responsibility for ensuring valid document templates and kept up to date and stored correctly
Conducting policy compliance checks on UK Space Agency grant funded calls for competition ensuring processes are followed and mandatory requirements are met. This will require engagement with project and programme leads.
Working closely with the Finance and Operations Teams to ensure the commercial processes and policy incorporate fraud prevention principles.
Providing support to Commercial Team led projects including business case development, procurement activities, and contract management on a range of procurement.
Supporting the Commercial Managers and Commercial Leads in providing commercial advice and support to project and programmes.
Maintaining the Contracts and Commitments tracker by co-ordinating regular communications to contract owners.
To support the delivery of training and awareness for Agency staff in commercial matters appropriate to their needs.
Ensure that Commercial policy & resource documents within the Centre of Excellence is maintained and updated, replacing documents and updating content on Share point as necessary.
Preparing summary of audit reports findings & improvement plans for senior managers.
Person specification
The successful candidate should have a good understanding of the UK procurement landscape, including changes to be implemented under the Procurement Act 2023. The successful candidate should be able to integrate into the commercial team effectively, whilst being comfortable engaging with people from across the agency from a range of professional backgrounds. They should have a willingness to develop their skills and explore a broad range of commercial opportunities the post offers including experience of small and large projects, grant funding, and alternative commercial models. They must be comfortable in a fast paced and changing environment with the ability to prioritise competing workloads.

Experience of contracting activity through conducting tenders; frameworks or open competitions, or the award of grants.
Good knowledge of procurement processes and experience of following identified processes.
Excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build strong relationships.
Ability to communicate clearly, succinctly and persuasively in writing, in meetings and in presentations.
Desirable:

Good knowledge of Public Procurement regulations, with an understanding of the processes and constraints of UK Government procurement processes.
Conducting policy compliance/assurance checks
Knowledge of supply chain fraud prevention principles
Experience of working on Grants and an awareness of the Functional Standards for Grants
MCIPS, working towards (any level) or willingness to undertake.
Programme or project management qualification, or willingness to undertake (such as from the Association of Project Managers, PRINCE2, Managing Successful Programmes or similar)
Familiarity with Microsoft Share point

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