Contract & Supplier Management Centre of Excellence Lead

The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury (COHMT) operate at the strategic center of the UK Government, managing a portfolio of circa £5bn to deliver critical policy outcomes. The COHMT Commercial Team’s vision is to be a top-performing function that sets the standard for excellence across the Civil Service.

The COHMT commercial team has recently undergone a strategic evolution, transitioning into a highly specialised Commercial Delivery and Operations model. The directorate comprises of two delivery clusters and a third cluster containing central strategy, performance and all enabling functions as well as non-category delivery and commercial portfolio management.

The COHMT Commercial team operates with our core values in mind which are:

We are Curious, Collaborative and Kind, we act with Integrity and are Focused on value for money.

Your role will have a significant impact providing the enabling services, governance, and infrastructure to allow the Directorate to provide an effective and efficient commercial service. The role will lead on designing, developing, and delivering a newly established Centre of Excellence (CoE) for contract management and supplier relationship management (SRM) across COHMT. You will ensure that external supplier networks, departmental partnerships, capacity-demand reporting, and continuous improvement activities are strategically aligned to support the broader team. The role will ensure that functional performance in contract management and supplier relationship management is robust and continually evolving. You will also step into support other commercial leaders in challenging contract and supplier issues and provide sound commercial advice.

This role will you will work with the Senior Leadership Team to lead the overarching strategy, framework, and continuous improvement plan for contract management and strategic SRM across the directorate. You will oversee the delivery of functional initiatives, ensuring robust assurance regimes, performance tools, and data integrity exist to monitor critical contracts and department spend.

You will provide authoritative advice and guidance on contract and commercial best practice across the Directorate and wider departments. You will act under your own initiative to influence senior stakeholders, defend the department's commercial position, and manage the cumulative impact of structural and cultural change across the function.

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.

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)

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

Your application will be reviewed by a panel and should you be successful at sift we will invite you to attend a Virtual commercial Assessment and Development Centre (VADC). The panel will review results of the VADC and determine which candidates will go through to a subsequent final panel interview.

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on Wednesday 9th December 2026 and will require a full day's attendance.

If you are invited to attend a virtual ADC, but for any reason are unable to meet the date outlined then please get in touch with the team on commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible. The ADC is booked and paid for in advance by departments, therefore it is only in certain circumstances we are able to accommodate alternative dates.

For full details of our process, and a likely timeline, please read the attached candidate pack.

Throughout our selection process, we will make decisions about your capability to do the job, based on evidence you provide against the Technical Skills (essential criteria) and your Job History (CV) that you will be asked to provide during the application process. Further help and advice on our application and selection process can be found at this web address https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-how-to-apply/

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 others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/artificial-intelligence-and-recruitment/

IMPORTANT: If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your application within 2 working days please contact: commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

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