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General Information

Salary
The national salary range is £35,335 - £37,847, London salary range is £40,014 - £42,859. Your salary will be dependent on your base location
Working Pattern
Full Time
Vacancy Approach
External
Location
National
Region
National
Closing Date
06-Jul-2026
Post Type
Permanent
Civil Service Grade
HEO
Number of jobs available
4
Reserve List
12 Months
Job ID
19073

Descriptions & requirements

Job description
Job Title: Assistant Commercial Manager

Job Grade: HEO

Job Location: National

Contract Type: Permanent

Business Area: Ministry of Justice Commercial 

Working pattern: Full-time

Number of Posts: 4

Commercial

The Ministry of Justice has one of the largest and most complex spending profiles in central government. Each year we spend more than £5 billion with our suppliers and it’s our job to help coordinate the sourcing of what we need. We support the management of our contracts across the department, its agencies and non departmental public bodies.

Commercial is responsible for coordinating procurement and contract management across the MoJ, its agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Commercial is organised into category teams, each with an interesting portfolio of contracts and diverse customers and suppliers to manage. We also have systems, programme management office, supplier relationship and risk management teams who work across all areas.

Role Summary

In this role you will be expected to contribute to delivering commercial excellence for the department, providing a customer-focused service, understanding the business need and stakeholder drivers, with the aim of becoming a trusted commercial advisor. You will also develop relationships with the department’s key and strategic suppliers, driving value for money and risk management excellence across the category.

You will be expected to support across the overall commercial life cycle. You will contribute to strategy and policy development, analyse data and use market insight to support the sourcing options, and work across the procurement process.

You will work as part of a larger team but will be expected to work independently by prioritising and managing your own workload to deliver to deadlines and to respond to changing operational demands.

This role is designed to be flexible and may support a broad range of commercial activity across the organisation. The postholder will contribute to contract management, procurement and wider commercial delivery in line with business priorities.
This role requires flexibility, and you may work across different pieces of work over time to meet changing business needs and priorities.

Why Join Us?
  • Be part of a team that helps deliver important services for the justice system
  • Work on interesting projects and help make a difference
  • Get support and training to develop your skills
Key Responsibilities

This role is varied, and individual remit is subject to both size of category, and/or level of complexity, value and risk within a category.  Typically, key responsibilities for a commercial professional in this role may include (but are not limited to):

Strategic delivery and management within a category:
  • Supporting development of specifications to deliver requirements that are in line with business needs, and existing category strategy
  • Engaging, where required, with the relevant lead ensuring that business requirements are in line with existing category strategies
  • Contributing to the development of category strategies
  • Carrying out analysis, research and requirements gathering to feed into demand forecasting and category strategies
  • Tracking progress against category plans and working to deliver key tasks
Understanding relevant sourcing options and analysis, delivering positive outcomes through the procurement process:
  • Working independently across end-to-end strategic sourcing activities for the department
  • In some cases, leading on low value/low complexity procurements, with support from senior commercial colleagues
  • Engaging with key stakeholders across the department to support the team develop a clear and agreed view of business requirements
  • Advising and providing professional guidance throughout the sourcing process, supporting the evaluation of a range of sourcing models
  • Gathering inputs and at times leading development of commercial input into business cases, evaluating the benefits, value and risks of projects
  • Providing a procurement service to the department which delivers demonstrable value for money and compliant goods and services contracts as part of a team of procurement professionals on larger procurement activities
  • Understanding, and being able to advise on, sourcing compliance and frameworks
Ensuring effective commercial contract and supplier management within the category:
  • Day-to-day management of one or more low to medium value/risk/ complexity contracts within the category, with support from senior commercial colleagues
  • Managing one or more contracts/suppliers, ensuring effective stakeholder management, governance, performance management frameworks, escalation, risk management, issues resolution, financial management, change control and compliance
  • Contributing to the management and administration of the whole supply chain portfolio, including the implementation of supply chain management and supplier relationship strategies
  • Supporting the administration of change control notices, data/spend analysis, management information and reporting
  • Tracking and owning risks relating to specific contracts, taking steps to mitigate commercial risks
  • Identifying perceived areas of risk, and supporting analysis of suppliers for risk and assurance purposes
Building and maintaining key relationships across the department and with important external stakeholders:
  • Developing effective working relationships with supplier organisations to establish appropriate governance and relationship arrangements, ensuring the effective management of clarifications and change requests
  • Engaging and working closely with the relevant senior business lead, ensuring that business requirements are supported by category strategies
  • Identifying key suppliers and articulating management and engagement level required to assure the supply chain
  • Assisting with senior internal stakeholder management across the business, helping them be informed about business elements that aim to move forward critical decision making at the top level
  • Assisting with senior external stakeholder management, holding working level relationships with individuals at external stakeholder groups
Enabling and developing the department:
  • Contributing to the maintenance and updating of systems throughout the procurement lifecycle
  • Feeding into catalogue and content management for the department, owning key aspects and working with stakeholders to promote the use of catalogues 
Working within a secure environment on sensitive projects as required

As part of your own personal career development in the Commercial team, there could be opportunities to move roles at the same grade.  In some circumstances, we may need to move you on to business-critical priorities at the same grade to meet business need.

Essential Criteria

Commercial Focus:  Has some experience within a procurement, commercial or buying role.  Has a good understanding of the principles of end-to-end commercial lifecycle management.    Ideally an understanding of public sector commercial principles and legislation.

Risk and Assurance Management:  Demonstrates the ability to identify and communicate cyber, personnel and physical risks and gain agreement on how they should be managed/mitigated.

Commercial Ethics:  Demonstrates the ability to apply standards to eliminate corruption, fraud and unethical behaviour in supply chains, taking appropriate actions in the event of any alleged breach of standards.

Team Focus:  Demonstrates the ability to work as part of a team to support their performance, manage setbacks and resolve issues internally.

Build Relationships:  Demonstrates the ability to communicate with stakeholders at all levels using different communication styles to articulate the benefits that have been achieved and to establish governance and relationship arrangements.

Desirable Criteria
  • Working knowledge of systems, e.g. Oracle and/or Jaggaer (Bravo)
  • Awareness and understanding of public sector commercial principles and legislation
  • Candidates must have one of the following or a willingness to work towards gaining the appropriate qualification in commercial management profession - CIPS, World CC or similar
Application Stage

An initial sift will be performed against the following elements and will be assessed against the Civil Service success profiles framework:

Experience
  • CV
  • Statement of Suitability (up to 500-750 words).  Demonstrate how you meet the role requirements, including an example of how you quickly got up to speed on a project (ideally within a Commercial setting), integrated into the team, added value, and contributed to its success
Behaviours

We will assess your application on the following behaviours.  Please use the STAR method in your examples. 
  • Managing a Quality Service – lead behaviour
  • Communicating and Influencing
  • Making Effective Decisions
Please note in the event of a large number of applications being received we may run the initial sift against CV, Statement of Suitability and lead behaviour of Managing a Quality Service

If shortlisted, you will be invited to an interview and will be assessed on the selected success profile elements at the interview stage. 

Interview Stage

There is one interview stage for this vacancy which will be held remotely and as part of the interview process you will be required to provide evidence on the following, and will be assessed against the Civil Service success profiles framework: 

Behaviours
  • Working Together
  • Managing a Quality Service
  • Delivering at Pace
Experience

This will be based around your Commercial or similar experience aligned to the essential criteria of the job description 

Strengths maybe assessed at the interview, and these are not shared in advance. 

To learn more about the Civil Service success profiles framework and how they are assessed please click here.

Use the STAR method to structure your examples:
  • Situation: Briefly describe the context.
  • Task: Explain what you needed to achieve.
  • Action: Focus on what you did, how you did it, and why (use “I”).
  • Result: Share the outcome, including impact, results, and any lessons learned.
Keep Situation and Task concise and focus on Actions and Results.

Commercial Roles

New entrants are expected to join on the pay minimum. Higher starting salary and/or Recruitment & Retention Allowance may be available for successful candidates with exceptional skills and experience.
 
We will consider applications from non-qualified candidates, who are willing to develop and work towards a recognised qualification in order to meet the full requirements of the role. 

The specialist allowance may apply to fully qualified applicants with a commercial professional qualification, for example CIPS, World CC, etc.

Further details can be provided during the recruitment process
Additional Information

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The MoJ offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non-contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different MoJ sites and / or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity.

Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone’s circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review.

For nationally advertised role: all successful candidates will be appointed to the nearest viable office nearest to their home postcode and on its respective pay scale.  This will be at either a HQ building (subject to desk allocation, a Justice Collaboration Centre (JCC) or a Justice Satellite Office (JSO) – See Map. All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity). 

For current MoJ employees, your base location will need to be changed to the nearest viable office (to your home postcode), either at a HQ building, JCC or JSO within the National Office Network and moved its location’s respective pay scale (any legacy arrangements/locations will need to be amended).

Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on 'modernised' terms in their current post or onto 'unmodernised' MoJ terms if they are on 'unmodernised' terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made.

MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain their grade on lateral transfer.

All candidates who are currently in receipt of Mark Time / Pay Protection should ensure they are familiar with the new policy on permanent and temporary promotion which can be found on the employee intranet.

Flexible working hours

The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. MoJ welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the MoJ’s Flexible Working policy.

Benefits

The MoJ offers a range of benefits:

Annual Leave

Annual leave is 25 days on appointment and will increase to 30 days after five years’ service.

There is also a scheme to allow qualifying staff to buy or sell up to three days leave each year. Additional paid time off for public holidays and 1 privilege day. Leave for part-time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

Pension

The Civil Service offers a choice of pension schemes, giving you the flexibility to choose the pension that suits you best.

Training

The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.

Networks

The opportunity to join employee-run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

Support

  • A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
  • Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits, retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
  • For moves to or from another employer or moves across the Civil Service this can have implications on your eligibility to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for alternative government childcare support schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. More information can be found on www.GOV.UK or Childcare Choices. You can determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
  • Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
  • Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code 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. Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order

As a Disability Confident employer, MoJ are committed to providing everyone with the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities, by making adjustments throughout all elements of the recruitment process and in the workplace. MoJ are able to offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns.

For more information on applying for a role as a candidate with a disability or long-term condition, please watch our animated videos.

You will be able to request reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process within the application form. If you need additional help completing the application form, please contact the TBS Recruitment Enquiries Team.

Diversity & Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

A Great Place to Work for Veterans

The "Making the Civil Service a Great Place to work for veterans" initiative includes a guaranteed interview scheme to those who meet the minimum criteria to provide eligible former members of the Armed Forces with opportunities to secure rewarding jobs. Allowing veterans to continue to serve their country, and to bring highly skilled individuals with a broad range of experience into the Civil Service in an environment, which recognises and values your previous service in the Armed Forces.
For further details about the initiative and eligibility requirements visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans

Redeployment Interview Scheme

Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ is committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.

MoJ is able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidates will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.

Civil Service Nationality Rules

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) https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families
  • 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) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Reserve list

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles.

Contact Information

MoJ:

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Please quote the job reference: 19073

HMPPS

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Please quote the job reference: 19073

Application form stage assessments

Behaviours
A sift based on the lead behaviour, Managing a Quality Service, may be held if a large number of applications are received. If a large number of applications remain after the initial sift, your application will be progressed to a full sift, where all behaviours will then be considered.
Behaviours Application Form Question Word Limit
250
Communicating and Influencing
Making Effective Decisions
Managing a Quality Service
Experience
We will assess your experience for this role via the following methods
CV or Work History, Experience Questions, Statement of Suitability
Experience Questions Application Form Question Word Limit
250
Statement of Suitability
Guidance for the Statement of Suitability
Demonstrate how you meet the role requirements, including an example of how you quickly got up to speed on a project (ideally within a Commercial setting), integrated into the team, added value, and contributed to its success
Evidence of Experience
CV or Work History, Experience Questions, Statement of Suitability

Interview stage assessments

Interview Dates
TBC - Expected early August
Behaviours
Managing a Quality Service
Working Together
Delivering at Pace
Experience
Your Experience for this role will be assessed at interview. To learn more about Experience and how they are assessed please click here.
We will assess your experience for this role via the following methods
Experience Questions
Strengths
Strengths will be assessed but these are not shared in advance. To learn more about Strengths and how they are assessed please click here.
Level of security checks required
Baseline Personnal Security Standard (BPSS)

Use of Artificial Intelligence (Al)

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.