The Business Development Coordinator helps keep Zinc Network’s business development running smoothly by coordinating, handling administrative tasks, and conducting research. This role manages the proposal process by tracking opportunities, organising documents and deadlines, following up on needed information, and preparing submissions. This support allows senior business development colleagues to focus on strategy, positioning, and building client relationships.
This position reports to the Business Development Lead, who sets priorities, bid strategies, and quality standards. Within these guidelines, the coordinator manages their own workload and organises business development records, trackers, and the proposal content library. This role is a great opportunity to gain experience in UK government and international procurement for anyone interested in a business development career.
Requirements
- Monitors procurement portals and funding sources across Zinc's priority frameworks, logging new and forthcoming opportunities in the pipeline tracker and circulating them to the BD lead for qualification.
- Maintains the BD pipeline tracker and associated records, ensuring opportunity details, deadlines, bid status, and win/loss outcomes are accurate and up to date for reporting to senior leadership.
- Supports the coordination of proposals led by senior BD colleagues — setting up bid folders and timelines, circulating briefing materials, tracking contributor inputs, and following up to agreed deadlines.
- Prepares compliance matrices and checklists against tender requirements, and carries out formatting, proofreading, and final compliance checks to ensure submissions are complete and meet all stated requirements.
- Collates and tailors standard proposal content — CVs, past performance and case studies, organisational information, policies, and due diligence documents — drawing on and maintaining Zinc's proposal content library.
- Drafts defined, lower-complexity proposal sections and capability material from templates and existing content, for review and editing by the BD lead.
- Supports the identification and recruitment of experts and consultants for proposals, including sourcing CVs, gathering availability and fee information, and managing exclusivity and consent documentation.
- Prepares background research and draft go/no-go briefing packs on prospective opportunities, clients, and competitors, as directed by the BD lead.
- Coordinates the submission process, including procurement portal registrations, clarification question logs, and document uploads, and assists the commercial team by collating pricing inputs into budget templates.
- Maintains BD infrastructure — the shared filing structure, standard templates, capability statements, and client-facing materials including Kora collateral — so that current, approved content is readily available to bid teams.
Requirements
- Some experience of proposal, bid, or business development support, or of coordination or administrative work in international development, strategic communications, consultancy, or a related professional services setting.
- Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple concurrent deadlines and tasks accurately under pressure.
- Strong attention to detail, with the ability to work methodically through tender requirements and check documents for completeness and compliance.
- Clear, accurate written English, with the ability to adapt existing material and draft straightforward content to a professional standard.
- Confidence working with colleagues across teams and levels — following up on inputs politely and persistently, and escalating issues appropriately.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Word and Excel, including document formatting and maintaining trackers.
Desirable
- Familiarity with UK government procurement processes and portals, such as FCDO, Home Office, Crown Commercial Service, Find a Tender, or Contracts Finder.
- Interest in communications, campaigning, media development, or information integrity.
- Experience using AI-enabled tools to support research, drafting, or document production.
Conditions of Employment
- Candidates who receive a job offer will be required to:
- Disclose any previous disciplinary action resulting from a substantiated safeguarding or workplace investigation, including any breaches involving trafficking-related activities.
- Undergo background checks including employment verification, sexual offender registry check (where available), identity confirmation, and anti-terrorism vetting
- Planned start date: January 2027
Zinc Network is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from people of all professional, cultural, and personal backgrounds.