Contract Management Graduate Crawley 2024

In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design innovative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible.Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us.

At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across five major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Ground Transportation, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times.

Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Contract Management Graduate

We’re inventing the future, right here, right now, at Thales. By combining the curiosity to explore, the intelligence to question and the vision to create, we’re transforming the world around us.

The Contract Management team ensures the commercial integrity of all the commitments we make as a company. The team also makes sure that everything we do complies with our legal, ethical and contractual responsibilities. This means overseeing contractual affairs at every stage, from bidding and negotiation to project delivery and contract closure.

The two-year Contract Management Graduate Development Programme (‘CM GDP’) will give you significant experience of bid preparation, contract negotiation and post-award contract management across four challenging work placements. Placements are in different areas of the Thales UK business

You’ll be expected to complete four six-month placements across various Thales sites and businesses in the UK so flexibility on your location is required for this. Our main sites are; Crawley, Glasgow, Belfast, Reading, Cheadle and Templecombe.

Key responsibilities

• Evaluating and advising on commercial risk in bids and recommending mitigation strategies
• Preparation of costing and pricing models and presentations
• Interpreting contractual documents and making amendments to existing and potential contracts
• Advising on potential liabilities, risks, issues and disputes arising with customers, suppliers, or third parties and working within multi-functional teams to reduce company risk and exposure
• Contributing to the successful delivery of contracts by managing the commercial aspects of the delivery to the customer as part of a multi-disciplinary team
• Ensuring appropriate export licences are in place, including liaising with supply chain to understand the export classification of goods
• Taking on commercial reviews of proposal documents and reviewing customer/third party terms and conditions

Desired skills, qualifications and experience

• You will be on track to or have achieved a bachelor’s degree in any subject; however subjects that have enabled you to develop analytical skills and business acumen such a Law or Business Studies are of particular interest
• You’ll be a team player with good interpersonal, verbal and written communication and organisational skills
• You’ll have excellent attention to detail, along with the ability to effectively summarise (oral and written)
• You should be commercially aware (including having some understanding of the role of the Contract Management function) and be able to bring a professional attitude to colleagues and customers alike
• You should be comfortable trying new things
• A candidate who is comfortable working with and understanding the interpretation of financial data would be desirable

During your time on the CM GDP you will undertake the ‘Fundamentals of Contract and Commercial Management’ course run by World Commerce & Contracting (WCC) (usually in your second year). On successful completion of the CM GDP you will start in a role in the Contract Management function supporting one of the Thales UK businesses.

Additional information

Please note that Graduate Development Programme (GDP) activities take place during the working week but may require the investment of some personal time for travel and follow-up activities. You may have the opportunity to travel to Thales and non-Thales sites throughout the UK when participating in GDP activities.

Please note, assessment centres for shortlisted candidates will be held between February and May 2024. Induction week for all Graduate and Apprentices will commence on Monday 2 September until Friday 6 September 2024.

Our applications will close at 11.59pm on Sunday 7 January 2024, this is the only time we will be accepting applications this year. Please note, we will be in contact by the end of January 2024 with details of next steps.

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales many of our roles are subject to security restrictions, and as a result, you may be limited to what you can work on within our business in relation to your place of birth and/or nationality.

As standard, all successful candidates must possess the permanent right to work in the UK, and will be required to go through Government security clearance at BPSS Level prior to starting with us and then to obtain full Security Clearance (SC) in line with the United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) requirements.

To gain full SC, you must have resided in the UK for a minimum of 12 months. As part of the vetting process you will be asked to provide evidence of your identity, eligibility to work in the UK, time spent abroad over the last 5 years, as well as employment and/ or educational history.

In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

Great journeys start here, apply now!