Associate Commercial Specialist - Construction

Job summary

The Government Commercial Agency (GCA) is the UK's central commercial and procurement organisation. As the single center of expertise for government commercial activity, GCA guides over 20,000 public sector customers to best value, shapes markets, and provides a gateway for suppliers of all sizes to work with the public sector.

Construction is a high-profile Category within the Government Commercial Agency which has shown exponential growth over the last 5 years. Part of the wider GCA’s Estates Category Team, alongside FM & Energy.

Developing and managing a range of innovative Construction commercial agreements, extensive supplier relationship management and market engagement. We are a supportive team of highly-experienced construction, procurement and category management professionals, who are passionate about driving policy, developing category and procurement strategies in support of delivering the Industrial strategy and Infrastructure Pipeline.

This is a key senior role within the Construction Category Team which provides an opportunity to be involved in some of the largest, complex Construction projects in the UK such as the Ministry of Justice new prison programme and the Defence Estates Optimisation Programme to name a few. Working with multiple government departments and wider public sector bodies to enable them to procure infrastructure projects and programmes of work ranging from £10k - £1bn >

The role provides opportunity to lead on industry specific areas of critical importance

If you are interested in how you can bring your Construction Sector knowledge and strategic commercial skills to the GCA’s Construction Category and how you can play a role in shaping industry and delivering against the Industrial Strategy and Government Missions then we would love to hear from you.

Job description

The Construction category team comprises 30 members of staff and the role holder will be responsible for line management of a small team within that.

Responsibility for conducting strategic category management to develop and deliver in collaboration with the GCA’s procurement operations team, new Construction frameworks to compliment the existing portfolio of construction works, offsite construction and construction professional services. Together with oversight of the existing portfolio in respect of framework management and compliance. Which have seen multi million pound projects being delivered such as the Ministry of Justice’s new prison programme.

In doing so you will be interfacing with multiple senior stakeholders across the GCA, other government departments and wider public sector, ensuring user requirements are incorporated, relevant policies are embedded and legal compliance is adhered to in line with PA23

Locations:
The successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. When selecting your location listed in this job advert please be aware that this will be your contractual base location with a requirement to spend a minimum of 60% of your working time in this organisational workplace.

Your time spent on official duties at workplace locations other than your contractual office such as supplier, customer or partner locations required to perform your role is included in the 60% attendance.

This requirement will however take into consideration any reasonable adjustments agreed upon appointment for people with a disability, flexibilities agreed for those with specific caring responsibilities, or other similar temporary flexibilities.

Person specification

• You will have responsibility for supplier relationship management in line with the GCA’s supply management policies and will strengthen supplier relationships via a robust SRM process, driving innovation and best practice from the market, this includes such as oversight of strategic focus groups to deliver value through areas such as social value and continuous improvement initiatives. Interfacing with the largest construction organisations in the UK, medium size organisations, SME’s and specialist organisations.
• You will lead on key aspects of GCA’s business plan and Estates category group priorities. Representing GCA at external events where required and contributing to GCA Enterprise wide and pan government wide initiatives where required.
• You will support customers with the development of procurement call off strategies for significant capital works projects and programmes bringing deep industry knowledge and expertise to enable best value commercial outcomes, building on the teams credibility of providing robust industry expert advice and guidance.
• You will be confident in leadership and change management in developing a strong commercial directorate within the Government Commercial Agency and provide strong leadership to ensure the Construction team delivers against business plan targets.
• You will line manage a small team of commercial staff and collaborate across the Estates Category Group and wider GCA on jointly delivering key GCA initiatives such as enhancing digital capability, robust L&D provision, approaches to category planning and continuous improvements.
• You will support the customer experience team in maintaining and developing relationships with central government departments and wider public sector users.
• You will actively monitor and report on the financial performance of the construction category’s commercial agreements.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Deep leading edge market knowledge related to the Construction Sector such as key market players, market challenges, construction industry trends, emerging technologies within the construction sector.
• Experience in Construction framework procurement, strategic sourcing, and supply chain management. Good working knowledge of construction contracts and a deep understanding of the Construction Playbook.
• Gravitas and stature as both a leader and Construction technical expert.
• Lead and coach a team of procurement professionals, upskilling them in construction-related matters, including forms of contract, design phases, and commercial models.
• Shape government policy and commercial strategy via construction insight incl. developing project/programme sourcing strategies, commercial models, and contracts. Contribute to Construction Playbook refreshes and industry PPNs.

Benefits

As a valued employee of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), you will have access to all the benefits the centre has to offer; including flexible working, generous benefits, Career Coaches, Mentors, L&D, a Commercial College, active talent management and, most importantly, access to commercial projects that will far exceed the scale and complexity on offer elsewhere in the UK.

For existing Civil Servants: For full details of the impact on any move across the civil service on your existing terms and conditions, please read the candidate pack. Please note that any move across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to continue to claim childcare vouchers.

Kindly refer to the following link for the GCF Rewards and benefits page.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-benefits/

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of oth