Senior Bid Manager BPL

Join us as a Senior Bid Manager within Barclaycard Payments’ Bid Management team, where you’ll play a key role in winning complex, high-value payments opportunities by leading RFx projects from initial capture through to final submission and presentation. Working at the heart of the Commercial organisation, you’ll bring together teams from across the business to create compelling, high-quality proposals that clearly demonstrate the value Barclays can deliver to both existing and prospective clients.

You’ll take ownership of bids end-to-end, identifying customer challenges, developing strong value propositions and win themes, and translating these into persuasive bid strategies and responses. You’ll work closely with colleagues across Commercial, Product, Marketing, Design, Technology, Legal, Compliance and Information Security, providing clear direction and ensuring each submission is accurate, differentiated and tailored to the needs of the merchant.

Alongside leading on individual bids, you’ll help to promote bid management team’s ways of working across the wider organisation. You’ll champion best practice and AI adoption, continuously improve bid processes and collateral, and contribute to the development of the function overall. With exposure to some of the most exciting opportunities in the payments industry, you’ll bring relatable payments knowledge, stakeholder management and strong attention to detail while confidently managing multiple priorities and competing deadlines.

This position would suit an experienced Bid Manager who balances strong project and stakeholder management with sufficient technical understanding to confidently navigate complex payment propositions.

To be successful in this role, you will have the following:

• Deep knowledge of the payments industry, ideally gained within acquiring, payment gateway or a broader Payment Service Provider (PSP) environment.
• Demonstrable experience in bid management, RFx delivery or a closely related commercial discipline, such as pre-sales, product marketing, business development or account management.
• Proven ability to manage complex projects and senior stakeholders across multiple business and functional teams.
• Excellent written communication, attention to detail and the ability to turn complex information into clear, persuasive and commercially compelling proposals.

Desirable skills include:

• Experience in AI-enabled bid management and due diligence processes
• APMP qualification or equivalent experience within a dedicated bid role
• Experience developing bid strategies, win themes and value propositions

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

This role will be based in London.

Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients.

In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.

Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years. 

Purpose of the role

To provide administrative, operational, and analytical support to the sales team, ensuring smooth sales processes, maintenance of customer relationships, and contribution to the overall success of the sales function. 

Accountabilities

• Provision of support to sales teams including administrative support through the maintenance and preparation of sales reports and customer databases, the creation of marketing collateral such as product brochures, and relationship manage initiatives with key clients.
• Preparation of sales proposals, presentations, and contracts for potential clients.
• Management of customer information and enquiry/issue resolutions, including the tracking of customer interactions, and accurate maintenance of customer records.
• Coordination with various internal departments, such as operations, legal, and compliance, to ensure smooth execution of sales processes and timely delivery of products or services to customers.
• Market research for identification of potential leads, target markets, and competitive intelligence to support sales strategies and initiatives.
• Completion of Proposal requests from clients, working closely with sales specialists, product areas and relationship areas.

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.