The Role

Willmott Dixon are looking for a Proposals Manager to join our Southern regional team that covers South London and the South East.

NB. This is initially a 12 month fixed term contract opportunity, with the possibility of converting into a permanent role!

The main role of a Proposals Manager at Willmott Dixon is to manage the quality of submissions and actively work with our project managers to develop the quality of bids. You will be able to assess technical bid requirements and assist the project manager to shape our proposals. You will ensure the formal bid process is followed, providing recommendations for continuous improvement.

Through your writing, review and editing of drafts you will ensure our submissions persuasively convey our offer to the customer by communicating key win themes within our responses, ensuring we score highly against the evaluation criteria.

Working with subject matter experts, you will conceptualise and create visual elements to help tell the story, whilst also contributing to the ‘look and the feel’ of our offering. With an awareness of bidding best practice, you will also provide guidance and support to less experienced staff and those from other areas of the business.

You’ll also support creation of clear and effective customer presentations and provide creative ideas and initiatives for bids.

Essential and Desirable Criteria

You will ideally have some experience as a Bid Writer, Bid Editor, Bid Coordinator or similar role. You will be able to lead the creation of our written responses to achieve high quality, winning bids/submissions that meet the requirements and expectations of our customers. You will have good experience of writing and editing tender submissions. Knowledge and experience of the Adobe Suite, particularly InDesign is desirable, but full training will be provided if required.

• Experience of facilitating answer plan sessions, win theme workshops and managing the tender review process.


• Experience of bid writing and bid editing, creating compelling and persuasive responses.


• Meticulous organisational skills.


• Experience of using Microsoft Office.


• Use of Adobe Indesign and Photoshop.


• UKAPMP membership and certified desirable.

Personal Qualities

What you’ll bring to the role

• Strategic, customer-focused thinking: Ability to identify key value propositions, competitive advantages and differentiators that help us stand out in the competitive bidding process, with the customer at the heart of every proposal.

• Creativity and writing: Crafting compelling narratives and persuasive proposals is a central aspect of the job; you’ll take pride in effectively communicating our response to customer needs through well written, engaging proposal content.

• Problem solving: It’s usual to encounter complex challenges during the proposal development process, such as aligning diverse ideas from multiple stakeholders, addressing technical complexities or mitigating risks. You’ll enjoy the problem-solving aspect of this role, finding solutions that meet both customer requirements and internal needs, then sharing any learning with the team and wider business.

• Leadership and teamwork: Our Proposals Managers work closely with cross-functional teams, including estimators, designers, engineers and subject matter experts. You’ll enjoy collaborating with diverse professionals, leveraging their expertise and fostering teamwork to develop comprehensive and well-rounded proposals, while providing the team with positive leadership throughout the bid process.

• Bidding best practice: With a passion for ensuring bidding best practice on every proposal, you’ll have extensive experience of storyboarding (answer planning), drafting, peer reviews, formatting and submission, and onto lessons learned and feedback analysis.

• Desire to learn: Our industry is dynamic and ever-evolving, with new technologies, methods, and trends emerging constantly. You’ll enjoy staying updated on industry developments, learning about new innovations and implementing best practices to enhance the proposal development process.

Additional Information

Are you an innovator, are you curious? We are not afraid to think big and embrace innovative new ideas to make sure we deliver a better, stronger, and more personal offer and exceed our customers’ expectations.

Willmott Dixon embraces diversity in the workplace and will consider flexible and agile working. We are a disability confident employer.

About Us

With over 170 years of rich history, Willmott Dixon’s purpose is beyond profit; delivering brilliant buildings, transforming lives, strengthening communities and enhancing the environment so our world is fit for future generations. Ensuring that we add lasting value to the neighbourhoods we work in; our values, people, innovation, partnerships and focus on sustainability has allowed us to build a successful and solid privately owned business where our people can thrive. Willmott Dixon was awarded No 1 in the Best "big" Companies (2022) to work for and the Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality 2024 and is the first major contractor and developer to win a King’s Award for Enterprise in the category of sustainable development.