Senior Commercial Manager - Hybrid – 2 days office-based, 3 days remote

Compass Community

1d•$60,000 - $70,000•Hybrid

About The Position

At Compass Community, we are dedicated to making a lasting difference in children's lives through our services in fostering, residential care, specialist education, and therapy. We collaborate with local authorities across England and Wales to provide children and young people with the stability, care, and opportunities they deserve. Compass offers a supportive community with clear career development, meaningful support, and recognition for outstanding work. This role is crucial for ensuring strong commercial foundations to support our mission. We are seeking a proactive, commercially minded Senior Commercial Manager to work closely with the Commercial Director, driving effective commercial practices throughout the business. This is a hands-on role for a self-starter who will be responsible for building robust financial models, managing commercial projects from inception to completion, overseeing contracts and fee uplifts, and providing clear progress reports. The role involves collaboration with Finance, Sales, Business Development, and Operations teams, as well as direct engagement with local authority partners.

Requirements

Proven experience in a commercial, finance, or business analyst role, ideally in a regulated, service-based, or public-sector-facing environment.
Advanced Excel skills, including the ability to build and maintain complex financial and commercial models.
Strong project management skills.
Good working knowledge of SharePoint.
Ability to manage multiple workstreams and competing priorities.
Confident communication skills with colleagues at all levels and with external partners such as local authorities.
Excellent written and verbal reporting skills, with the ability to simplify complex commercial information.
A methodical, detail-focused approach, good judgment, and ownership of work.

Nice To Haves

Experience in or with children's services, social care, education, or another regulated care sector.
Experience with CareCubed or similar cost-modelling tools.
Experience working directly with local authority commissioners or procurement teams.
Familiarity with project management tools and methods.
A finance, business, or project management qualification (e.g., AAT, part-qualified CIMA/ACCA, PRINCE2, APM).

Responsibilities

Supporting the Commercial Director in delivering the commercial strategy and day-to-day commercial operations.
Building and interpreting commercial and financial models for pricing, tenders, contract renewals, and business cases.
Leading commercial projects end-to-end, including planning, milestones, risk management, issue resolution, and deadline adherence.
Producing clear and accurate reports for senior stakeholders.
Collaborating with Finance, Business Development, and Operations to ensure proposals and models are commercially sound and accurately reflect service operations.
Improving commercial processes, tools, and ways of working.
Overseeing contracts from award through delivery, renewal, or exit.
Maintaining a central contract register to track key dates, KPIs, obligations, and performance.
Working with commissioners on contract variations, extensions, and disputes.
Ensuring contract compliance with policy and legislation, and supporting commercial audits.
Leading the annual and ad hoc fee uplift process with evidence-based submissions to commissioners and frameworks.
Tracking benchmarking data, CPI/RPI, National Living Wage changes, and care cost pressures.
Negotiating uplifts with local authorities and framework administrators while maintaining strong relationships.
Reporting uplift outcomes to Finance and Operations.