Principal Bid Lead - Environmental Services

Principal Bid Lead
Home Based – with UK travel for meetings and site visits
Full Time, Permanent    
£65,000 - £70,000 per annum plus benefits

Company Car + Bonus

Here at Serco, we are seeking a Principal Bid Lead to join our Growth team to manage and win complex bids within the environmental services sector, with a strong focus on local government waste and recycling collection and street cleansing contracts. You will lead bid teams through the bid lifecycle, ensuring alignment with the business strategy and delivering high-quality outcomes for customers. You’ll be a key player in Serco’s bid community, driving innovation, continuous improvement, and cross-portfolio collaboration. You will also work closely with various stakeholders to develop winning strategies and deliver compelling proposals.

We’re looking for a proactive and innovative individual with the ability to develop and sell tailored solutions and consistently deliver results. You will possess both technical management skills in the bidding arena and people leadership skills, as well as recognising the importance of creating, leading and sustaining bid teams within the capability and capacity to produce winning results.

Serco’s purpose is to impact a better future - we bring together the right people, the right technology, and the right partners to create innovative solutions that deliver positive impact and address some of the most urgent and complex challenges facing governments globally. Our services are powered by more than 50,000 colleagues working across multiple sectors including defence, space, migration, justice, healthcare, transport, and customer services in four regions: UK & Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

As part of this you’ll:

• Lead and manage complex Environmental Services bids.
• Develop and maintain effective bid plans and capture strategies.
• Manage multidisciplinary bid teams, ensuring capability, capacity, and well-being.
• Develop strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ensure bids are aligned with business strategy and have a clear win strategy.
• Lead customer engagement, negotiations, and presentations.
• Oversee bid submissions and ensure they are compelling and coherent.
• Support handovers from the bid team to operations for smooth project execution.
• Foster team collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the business unit.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to junior team members.

What you’ll need to do the role:

• Substantial bid experience, showing both technical and leadership skills translating into positive outcomes for the customer, the company and employees working on bids.
• Sector specific experience within Environmental Services and/or Local Authorities is preferred.
• Proven success in winning highly complex, large, competitively tendered opportunities including negotiation, closing, and handing over to operational teams.
• Experience in structured methodologies such as APMP, Prince2, or Shipley would be advantageous.
• Ability to assess capture performance to measure effectiveness, anticipate and resolve problems.
• Strong commercial and financial understanding to enable optimum balance of risk, reward, and price to embed within qualified opportunities.
• High performance, goal-orientated, and creative problem-solving skills.
• Ability to operate successfully in a challenging, changeable, and high-profile role, within a fast paced and dynamic market environment.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills – active listening, ability to articulate customers’ environment and needs to all management levels.
• Demonstrate ability to self-motivate and self-manage whilst providing leadership to a diverse team.

Why Serco:

A place you can make an impact: Our purpose is to impact a better future – and here you’ll be part of that too. You will be instrumental in the delivery of high-scoring bids, for contracts with an emphasis on social value, that positively impact the communities we live in.

Meaningful and vital work: In this position, your work is vital to the business, in terms of decisions and growth. You will gain a world of opportunity working for a globally operating business delivering essential services across 5 vital sectors, personal growth, achievement, and development won’t be hard to find. You'll also work with great people. You’ll find yourself working in a highly motivated, supportive environment where no two days are the same, with experienced colleagues who strive for excellence.

From contact centres and complex case management to the administration of flagship employment and health programmes to the operation of local waste management and leisure services, we are committed to delivering better government services to citizens. We help governments to drive cost-efficiencies and meet rising expectations for improved public services.

What we offer:

• Company car / £4200 cash allowance.
• Bonus – 10% on target, 20% max.
• Private medical insurance.
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays.
• Annual leave purchase scheme.
• Up to 6% contributory pension scheme
• Flexible working options.
• A Serco benefits portal offering a wide range of discounts for major high street brands in Retail, Leisure & Hospitality.
• A range of benefits to support the health and wellbeing of you and your family such as Employee Assistance Programme, Health Cash Plans, free flu jabs and more.
• A wealth of career development training to suit your future aspirations. These range from role specific training, leadership coaching, formal study and much more to support you to build your career with Serco.
• A safe and supportive culture.
• A company passionate about diversity and inclusion.

About Serco
At Serco, not only is the nature of the work we do important, everyone has an important role to play, from caring for vulnerable people to managing complex public services.  We are a team of 50,000 people responsible for delivering essential public services around the world in areas including defence, transport, justice, immigration, healthcare and citizen services. We are innovators, committed to redesigning and improving public services for the benefit of everyone.

By joining Serco you will have unlimited access to our Global Employee Networks – SercoInspire (Gender), SercoEmbrace (Multicultural), SercoUnlimited (Disability) and In@Serco (LGBT & Networks). Serco Employee Networks, led by colleagues who are passionate about diversity, inclusion and belonging. 

Apply
Please click on the apply button to complete your application. Occasionally we receive a large volume of applications for our roles and when that happens we sometimes bring the closing date forward, so please apply promptly to avoid disappointment. 

At Serco, we see people first and foremost for their performance and potential. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive organisation that supports the needs of all. As such we will make reasonable adjustments at interview through to employment for our candidates and strongly encourage applications from a diverse candidate pool. We are open to discussions around flexibility and flexible working. We operate a hybrid work structure in many of our business areas. We are proudly Disability Confident Leader employers and holder of the Gold Inclusive Employer Standard. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities at an interview.  For help with your application please contact 0345 010 4000.
 

At Serco we support fair access to employment for those with unspent criminal convictions through the ‘Ban the Box’ pledge (some may be exempt due to the nature of the role and the security clearance required). Please contact our recruitment team directly on 0345 010 4000 to discuss.