About the Food Standards Agency
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is a non-ministerial government department responsible for ensuring food we can trust. While this mission is delivered through our people, third-party suppliers play a critical role in delivering our services and outcomes. Of our gross expenditure of approximately £140 million, around £85 million is spent on third-party services, making effective commercial and contract management central to our success. The Commercial Team enables the FSA to achieve optimal value for money from its procured services while managing risk and ensuring intended outcomes are delivered.
The Role
The Head of Contract Management is a newly created, high-impact leadership role responsible for establishing and embedding an organisation-wide approach to contract and supplier management. Reporting at a senior level, you will ensure robust governance, effective performance management, and joined-up commercial strategies are in place across the FSA. This role is pivotal in maximising value, strengthening supplier performance, managing commercial risk, and ensuring delivery of high-quality outcomes for the public.
Leadership and Strategy
You will set a clear vision and strategic direction for contract and supplier management across the FSA, aligning this with organisational priorities and the wider Commercial Strategy. Working closely with the Head of Commercial and colleagues across government, you will ensure a seamless link between sourcing, procurement, and post-award management to deliver whole lifecycle value. You will act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders on complex and high-value contracts while designing and implementing contract management frameworks that reflect government best practice, including the Government Functional Standard GovS 008 and the Contract Management Playbook.
Contract and Supplier Management
You will oversee the FSAs portfolio of contracts, ensuring they are appropriately segmented, governed, and resourced according to their value and risk. Your leadership will ensure robust performance management arrangements are in place, enabling consistent delivery against contractual outcomes. You will lead the FSAs strategic supplier relationship management approach, engaging with key suppliers to drive innovation, resilience, and continuous improvement. A core part of the role will be ensuring risks and issues are actively managed and that value for money is realised across the contract lifecycle.
Commercial Policy and Governance
You will establish and maintain a strong framework of contract management policies, standards, and governance aligned with Cabinet Office controls, Procurement Act requirements, and functional standards. This includes ensuring consistent application of commercial controls across the organisation, supporting audit readiness, and maintaining transparency. You will also lead the development of standard approaches to contract mobilisation, transition, change control, and exit planning, using data and insight to inform decision-making and improve performance.
Stakeholder Engagement and Influence
This role requires exceptional influencing skills to build trusted, collaborative relationships across the FSA. You will work closely with senior leaders to embed commercial thinking into decision-making, ensuring that risk, performance, and value for money are fully considered. You will act as a key link with central government commercial functions and represent the FSA in cross-government forums, sharing best practice and learning from others to continuously improve our approach.
People and Capability
You will establish and lead a high-performing contract management community across the FSA, strengthening capability in line with Government Commercial Function standards. This includes defining roles, responsibilities, and frameworks that enable strong intelligent client capability across the organisation. You will identify capability gaps and implement targeted development interventions, while supporting senior leaders to ensure roles are appropriately resourced and accountable. You will also build a culture of continuous improvement, promoting professionalism, collaboration, and the sharing of best practice across the organisation.
Why Join Us
This is a unique opportunity to build a function, shape strategy, and influence outcomes at national scale within a purpose-driven organisation. You will play a key role in ensuring that public money is used effectively and that critical services are delivered to a high standard, directly contributing to the FSAs mission of protecting public health and maintaining trust in food.
Working pattern guidance
If applying as a job share partnership you should both complete separate application forms on Civil Service Jobs but should make it clear that you are applying as job sharers. Further details on job sharing can be found here JSF What is the recruitment process for job sharers? , Civil Service Careers (civil-service-careers.gov.uk)
Applicants who wish to work part time / compressed hours are welcome to apply - however your preferred working pattern may not be available and you should discuss this with the vacancy holder before applying.
Due to the nature of the role we are unable to consider requests for part time working of less than 30 hours per week.
