Senior Commercial Officer - Infrastructure
| Posting date: | 13 October 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £42,665 to £46,765 per year |
| Additional salary information: | For details of our pay on appointment policy, please see below under the heading ‘Salary’. |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 27 October 2025 |
| Location: | PE2 8YY |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 430102/1 |
Summary
If so, we’d like to hear from you!
Defra Group Commercial wish to appoint a Senior Commercial Officer (otherwise known as Senior Buyer) within the Infrastructure Category to support and lead Commercial delivery of medium to high value and risk projects (typically £50k to £50m), procurements and contract/ supplier management within a market facing category team across the full commercial life cycle.
As a Senior Commercial Officer, you will report to a Commercial Manager (Grade 7). You will work with customers from Defra to ensure value for money for the taxpayer while assisting delivery of Defra’s objectives and corporate targets. You will award and monitor medium value, medium and high-risk contracts in accordance with Defra's commercial policies and procedures. You will deliver propriety and value for money.
The roles will provide strategic support to ensure our commercial models help project teams build and maintain flood defences in the most cost-effective way. You will provide expert advice to the business on commercial issues, governance and operational support to the team. You will engage with colleagues across the country, building their commercial network both internally and through the wider Defra network and Government Bodies.
The successful candidate will be required to:
- Work collaboratively within an Infrastructure project Team.
- Build and sustain effective relationships with suppliers and internal customers to deliver exceptional performance in cost, service and quality.
- Produce Procurement Strategies and Contract Award Reports.
- Work with clients and suppliers to support an efficient getting into contract process.
- Manage market engagement exercises.
- Run tenders in accordance with Public Contracts Regulations and receive bids using our eSourcing system, Atamis.
- Manage evaluation processes.
- Demonstrate good communication and influencing skills.
- Have an awareness of and demonstrate compliance with government commercial policy.
- Identify and manage commercial risks.
- Be comfortable presenting work to governance boards.
- Have a working knowledge of NEC contracts, primarily ECC, PSC and ECSC.
- Demonstrate savings and efficiencies in delivery contributing to the category’s annual targets.
Additional information on the role and the team
The Infrastructure Peterborough team provide support to the Environment Agency and Risk Management Authorities in delivering flood risk schemes across the region. The team are based in Quay House, Peterborough where we benefit from hands on support from a dedicated manager and supportive team.
Our team work predominantly with Environment Agency Frameworks to determine efficient routes to market and appropriate NEC4 contracting options for a variety of projects from small scale landscaping to major civil engineering construction projects.
Projects that we are currently supporting include:
- Great Yarmouth Phase 3 is a £34m scheme comprising of a mixture of repair and rebuild of 10.2 kilometers of river wall to protect 4500 homes and businesses.
- Debris screen programme is approximately £26m in total including higher risk and lower risk screens improvement works to ensure screens meet CIRIA standards. Using a combination of traditional delivery, and design and build, the debris screens programme is delivered nationally and offers opportunity to collaborate across the category to discuss delivery nationally.
- Happisburgh to Winterton Phase 4 is a £100m+ 14km Sea defence scheme comprising of a beach recharge, groyne replacement and offshore reefs to protect homes and businesses.
- Assets Below Required Condition (ABRC) programme aims to enable rapid creation of a programme to commence delivery as soon as possible and is managed in accordance with the National Assets Below Required Condition Guidance. There are 15 sub-programme packages with the objective of restoring assets back to their conditions in compliance with all the necessary legal requirements. There are hundreds of assets with a total value of £100m+.
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