About the job

Job summary

Are you a dynamic professional with a passion for commercial excellence? We are seeking an experienced Commercial Manager to join our team. As a key player, you will drive critical business decisions and contribute to our success.

In this role, you will be responsible for managing end-to-end commercial processes, from inception to execution. Your ability to make strategic commercial decisions will be pivotal in achieving our organizational goals. If you thrive in a fast-paced environment and have a proven track record of meeting challenging deadlines, we want to hear from you!

As Commercial Manager you’ll lead and optimise our commercial processes, ensuring efficiency, compliance, and alignment with business objectives. Provide project leadership, managing multiple workstreams simultaneously, demonstrating exceptional project management skills. Your ability to deliver results within tight timelines will be crucial. You will have analytical acumen, utilising both quantitative and qualitative analysis to dissect complex concepts. Translate data into actionable insights and recommendations for commercial decisions. You’ll also work collaboratively with diverse stakeholders, fostering strong relationships across teams. Your interpersonal skills will be essential in driving successful outcomes. Successful communication will be the key to articulate your ideas clearly through written and verbal communication. Your ability to convey complex information concisely will set you apart.

Job description

The offshore transmission sector is changing rapidly to work towards the government's ambitions to deliver up to 50GW of offshore wind generation by 2030 and be net-zero by 2050. The way in which Ofgem runs competitive tenders for Offshore Transmission Owner (OFTO) licences needs to be developed to account for these changes, but also to ensure that the regulatory regime that has been extremely successful in driving down consumer costs continues to deliver good competition that benefits electricity consumers. 

The successful candidate will join at an exciting and pivotal time for offshore wind. The successful candidate will have ownership and responsibility for multiple offshore transmission projects and ensure key milestones within the tender and transaction process are successfully delivered. The successful candidate will also be expected to contribute to the development of policy for the competitive tender process of projects.  

The post holder will draw on their experience in a commercial, finance or public sector policy role, to ensure that the tendering and transaction processes successfully achieve Ofgem’s purpose of ensuring strong competition in the award of OFTO licences to licensees with robust long-term asset management plans, at low cost to electricity consumers. Highly developed organisational skills are required to work across a range of activities, identifying priorities and risks, and addressing these directly. 

The Networks Directorate’s work plays a key role in ensuring that appropriate regulatory arrangements are in place to facilitate the timely move to a low carbon energy sector whilst continuing to provide safe, secure, high quality network services at value for money to existing and future consumers. The OFTO team sits in the Commercial Networks part of the Networks Directorate. These are fast-moving and high-profile areas with network costs and competition being increasingly part of the political debate over energy costs.  

Key Responsibilities (depending on individual appointment) 

Contribute on the delivery of existing tender processes and developing future tender policy, including: 

• clear, relevant and concise internal management papers, briefings and presentations in order to support Ofgem senior management in making effective and timely decisions; 
• delivery of tender processes, including the design and preparation of tender documentation; 
• acting as a point of contact in commercial elements of the tender and transaction phase of multiple projects; 
• identifying risks, issues and concerns and helping to develop effective solutions to address these; 
• Maintain existing relationships with internal and external stakeholders (such as offshore transmission licensees);  
• assist in building new lasting relationships particularly equity investors and the wider finance community; 
• ensure stakeholder views are understood and taken into account in the continued development and implementation of robust regulatory policy outcomes, for the ultimate benefit of current and future consumers; 
• coordination with other teams within Ofgem and other government departments, who are also working on related and interdependent workstreams to achieve common goals; 
• delivering oral and written briefings to management on key issue; and 
• representing Ofgem at relevant industry events, seminars and working groups, as well as developing links internally with other teams in the division, and across Ofgem. 

Key Outputs and Deliverables 

• Drafting clear and concise management papers and public documents (e.g. consultations) to communicate policy proposals and decisions to external stakeholders. 
• Identifying and where necessary implementing changes to legislative and regulatory frameworks, including supporting the development of specific OFTO licence terms. 
• Liaise with bidders to ensure a robust and competitive process for projects. 
• Development, management and coordination of tender and evaluation processes for offshore transmission projects. 
• Preparation and production of reports relating to the evaluation outcome recommendations for use in the decision-making process. 
• Manage engagement with bidders, developers and other third parties during tenders and transaction stages. 
• Managing project teams and external contractors and advisers. 
• Oral and written briefings to senior management. 

Key Stakeholder Relationships 

Internal  

• Director, Deputy Director and Head of Teams in the Networks directorate. 
• Internal legal advisers. 
• Internal engineering and regulatory finance support.  

External 

• Project developers, system operator (National Grid ESO), existing licensees, investors and financing community. 
• Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, other European regulators and governments on regulatory, legislative and policy matters. 
• Project developers and bidders in electricity transmission. 
• Ofgem’s external legal, technical and financial advisers. 
• Other relevant government departments and agencies, such as HMRC, Marine Regulators, The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland. 

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Experience of managing a commercial process and making key commercial decisions (lead criteria). 
• Good project management skills with experience of leading multiple workstreams and a strong track record of delivery against challenging deadlines (lead criteria). 
• Strong analytical and numerical skills– both quantitative and qualitative and proven ability to use these to analyse complex concepts and make recommendations on commercial decisions. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with experience of working within a team and working with a diverse range of stakeholders. 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.  

Desirable Criteria

• Ability to take initiative, think creatively and work independently. 
• Knowledge and experience of co-ordinating and managing tender and project delivery processes. 
• Knowledge of the energy sector. 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,498, OFGEM contributes £8,774 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

When you press the ‘Apply now’ button, you will be asked to complete personal details (not seen by the sift panel), your career history and qualifications.  

You will then be asked to provide a 1250 word ‘personal statement’ evidencing how you meet the essential and desirable skills and capabilities listed in the role profile. Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your supporting statement, how you meet each of the essential and desirable skills and capabilities. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.