Job Description
12 months Fixed Term / Secondment Development Opportunity
Job Summary
You will lead, manage, and be accountable for a Commercial Team with responsibility for approximately 160 supplier contracts within the Science Goods and Services category, including Blood Packs, Pathology and Managed Services for Blood Testing. You will ensure that all resources are focused on delivering sustainable, quality, and innovative commercial solutions in compliance with legislation.
As the leader of the Science Supplier and Contract Management team, you will need to bring a vision, a passion for delivery, and strong people management skills. You will provide professional expertise to formulate, develop, and implement long-term strategic plans for the category and contracts managed by the team. Additionally, you will actively engage and collaborate with internal stakeholders, suppliers, and public sector bodies to support our commercial strategies and their effectiveness.
You will continuously improve the commercial service delivered to stakeholders, enhance expertise, and build the capability and potential of the function. You will take a pivotal role in delivering significant cost improvements in a creative, innovative, and sustained manner to help us meet our financial objectives.
Main duties of the job
In this role you will support in the delivery of the planning & organisation, day to day operations, financial, quality targets and vision of the Commercial directorate within NHSBT. Your responsibilities will include:
- Developing and managing a portfolio of larger high-risk projects, typically with a high level of expenditure and/or complexity.
- Developing working relationships with key suppliers and ensuring excellent performance standards are achieved in line with contractual requirements and stakeholders’ expectations.
- Line managing the team and developing a culture that encourages open communication and ensures that people are managed through effective teamwork, leadership, and motivation across the team and wider Commercial function.
- Managing operational multi-stranded budgets for products and services within their category group.
- Leading and supporting in the preparation of complex tender documents, inviting tender bids from suppliers, including the selection of suppliers following pre-qualification analysis of supplier information and pre-tender commercial discussions.
- Leading and supporting category strategies, market shaping, strategic sourcing, and procurement.
- Developing long-term strategic plans for the sourcing, procurement, and delivery of contracts.
Please view the attached recruitment profile which is a summary of the detailed Job Description and Person Specification for the full personal attributes we require for the role. You will need to demonstrate these throughout the recruitment process.
About Us
It takes all types of people to deliver the kind of service that saves and improves lives. At NHS Blood and Transplant, you’ll join a team of more than 6,000 people who are making a genuine difference to communities, families, friends, relatives and more across the UK. We play a unique and special role in the NHS by helping people do something extraordinary- donate blood, blood products, organs, tissues, or stem cells to save someone in need.
Our three core values are what set us apart. They guide and inspire everything we do.
By being caring, expertly meeting the needs of our patients and our people, and accepting nothing less than the best quality, we can do extraordinary work – and help our people to do something extraordinary in their career, too. Three small words, one big difference - Caring, Expert and Quality. Together we'll save and improve more lives than ever.
You will join us on our journey to create an inclusive workplace and aim to reflect the diverse communities we work with, and we positively encourage applications from all sectors of the community.
This vacancy will close at 23:59 on Monday 28th July 2025.
Panel interviews to be held on 7th August 2025 – subject to confirmation.
For informal conversation, please contact Wendy Thorne at wendy.thorne@nhsbt.nhs.uk.
