Procurement Consultant

We are recruiting for a Procurement Consultant to join our Public Procurement Team at TLT. The firm’s Public Procurement Team is part of the wider Contracts and Procurement Team which has 9 partners and 23 specialist lawyers and a senior procurement consultant operating out of multiple TLT offices across the UK, including Bristol, Birmingham, London, Manchester, and Glasgow. We are open to discussing where this role will be based, depending on where you live.

At TLT we have launched a progressive flexible working approach, which focuses on hybrid working to support the work life balance of our people.

Your Role

In addition to providing legal advice, the Procurement Team provide near legal (technical and consultancy) advice to our clients and this service has increased in demand such that a vacancy for additional technical/ consultancy resource has arisen in our team.

You will work with the senior procurement consultant and our leading public procurement and commercial lawyers to give public procurement law and technical advice to a range of public sector clients.

The role will provide exposure to a broad and varied range of procurement consultancy work across the public sector on a national basis to include central government departments, police forces, local authorities, nuclear site license companies, defence and non-departmental public bodies/charities. The work will include supporting large, high-value, complex, high profile or otherwise high-risk procurements sometimes across the whole process and other times for discrete activities.

The type of work and projects that the candidate will work on is broad and will involve advising on:

• Designing public procurement procedures including drafting/ reviewing ITTs
• Supporting with market engagement
• Drafting conditions of participation, technical questions and scoring matrices
• Conducting moderations and drafting assessment summaries
• Conducting workshop from writing questions, contract management, drafting KPIs and learning from experience
• Writing and delivering training on various elements of the PA23, e.g. evaluation training, contract management
• Setting and managing KPIs and Service Level Agreement
• Reviewing specification and contracts for practical application, contract management (including modifications) and reporting purposes
• Reviewing proposed contract modifications for compliance with the relevant legislation and advising on risk (in partnership with one of our lawyers)
• Conducting commercial reviews of procurement processes and governance, including spend analysis, drafting recommendations and support with updating templates, JDs and procurement strategies
• Supporting with procurement challenges, reviewing information to determine if a procedural or manifest error has occurred
• Quality review of evaluation and moderation notes, and assessment summaries for challenge risk
• Advising on practical application of public contracts regulations, Procurement Act and Procurement Regulations
• Compliance audits, procurement risk appraisals

Our open and collaborative culture creates a supportive working environment which is the ideal place to progress your career. We work with high profile clients in innovative sectors, and we’ll help you embrace opportunities to keep learning as we grow our firm.

We will invest in you. We want you to be successful. Learning and development is paramount at TLT. Your progress helps us meet the changing needs of our clients, build collaborative relationships that endure and sets our firm apart. That’s why we invest heavily in developing our people through training programmes.

Your Skills and Experience

You will be/have:

• A LLM in in Public Procurement law and Policy (preferred) or MCIPS / FCIPS
• At least 5 years of technical procurement/ consultancy experience of working with or within the public sector on complex procurement matters (essential)
• Experience of large scale, complex regulated procurements (e.g. Infrastructure, construction, estates, IT) using the CD/CPN and/or IP procedures is essential
• Experience of government governance and reporting requirements, processes and risks
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience of advising on the public procurement regulations (PCR, UCR and/or DSPCR) is essential. Specific and detailed examples must be included in detail within your application.
• Experience bringing/ defending a challenge (desirable)
• A forward thinker, with excellent analytical, communication and organisational skills, you will be self-motivated with the ability to manage workloads and deadlines
• Ability to conduct spend analysis and commercial reviews, experience conducting stakeholder/ market engagement, drafting recommendations and reports
• Commercially aware, with the ability to maintain and nurture strong client relationships
• Develop a deep understanding of your client’s business needs, and act in the best interest of the firm and the client
• Contribute to our collaborative culture, with an ambition to assist in the development of junior team members.

Your Team

You will work with the Senior Procurement Consultant as an integrated part of our Procurement and Contracts Team; you will often work alongside our lawyers to support our clients with not just ensuring their procurement is compliant with legislation, but also practical and designed to deliver the intended outcome.

Our team advise on all aspects of the EU/UK procurement regime and helps to ensure that robust and successful procurements are completed without challenge. Our lawyers advise on all stages of the procurement process including pre-market engagement, initial scoping, potential application of exemptions, drafting all procurement and contract documents, negotiations with bidders, and the evaluation and award process. They also advise on any disputes or challenges that may arise and the options available to a defending body or challenging party. Clients include bodies in local government, central government, and the police, as well as other public bodies and registered providers of social housing and in some cases, private sector organisations.

The team includes individuals with extensive in-house experience in the public sector, allowing us to apply our sector insight and technical expertise in a way that helps businesses meet their requirements. We're also inaugural members of the Procurement Lawyers Association, which gives us cutting edge insight into this constantly evolving area.

About TLT

Fast paced, fast growing and forward thinking, TLT is the law firm that helps clients stay one step ahead, and we do the same for our people.

We work with high profile clients in innovative sectors. With local, national and international reach, we have over 1,800 people in offices across the UK and a network of partner firms across Europe, India and the US. TLT was named Law Firm of the Year at the Legal Business Awards 2023. This marks the third year in a row the firm has taken away this accolade in industry awards - having previously been named Law Firm of the Year at The Lawyer Awards in 2021 and the British Legal Awards in 2022.

Our purpose is to protect, prepare and progress our clients for what comes next and it’s essential that we do the same for our people, our planet and our communities too. In our open and collaborative culture, we encourage everyone to be their whole self, to have a voice and to contribute.

Our Benefits

We value our employees highly and we want you to feel valued. You’ll receive a competitive salary with an annual pay review. You will also have access to an extensive range of benefits via our flexible benefits scheme including 25 days holiday (which will increase to 30 days based upon length of service) and private medical insurance.

At TLT we have a progressive fully flexible working approach. We empower our people to work in a place and at a time that meets their needs, those of their clients and of the wider team and firm. Part of this agile approach is a focus on hybrid working and supporting the work/life balance of our people.

TLT is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive working environment and encourages applications from all suitably qualified people, regardless of any of the characteristics protected by the laws in the locations in which we operate.

We welcome applications from people with disabilities and are committed to providing reasonable adjustments, where necessary, to make interviews and jobs more accessible. Should you have any difficulty during the recruitment process, require any reasonable adjustments or an application to Access to work please contact the recruitment team on [email protected]