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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Bid Writer

💰 $ - $

ProcurementSalesBid ManagementTendering

🎯 Role Definition

A Bid Writer (also known as Proposal Writer or Tender Writer) is responsible for producing high-quality, compliant, persuasive responses to tenders, RFPs, RFIs and RFQs. The role combines commercial insight, strong written communication, stakeholder coordination, and an acute attention to detail to shape win themes, develop pricing narratives and ensure submissions meet client requirements, compliance rules and internal quality standards. This role supports sales, capture and commercial teams to convert opportunities into contract wins.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Proposal/Bid Coordinator or Bid Support Officer with 0–2 years’ experience
  • Sales Support Administrator or Commercial Administrator with exposure to tender processes
  • Technical Writer, Marketing Copywriter or Contracts Assistant moving into proposal work

Advancement To:

  • Senior Bid Writer / Senior Proposal Manager
  • Bid Manager / Tender Manager responsible for end-to-end bids
  • Capture Manager or Commercial Manager overseeing pricing and contract negotiation

Lateral Moves:

  • Tender Manager / Proposal Manager in a different sector (public/private)
  • Sales Enablement Manager or Pre-Sales Consultant focusing on bid content and tools

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead the end-to-end preparation and delivery of persuasive, compliant responses to tenders, RFPs and RFQs, ensuring deadlines are met and submissions are formatted to client specifications.
  • Interpret tender documents, scoring criteria and contractual requirements to develop clear bid strategies, win themes and response outlines aligned with commercial objectives.
  • Draft, edit and refine narrative responses, executive summaries, and answer templates that articulate the value proposition, technical approach, and commercial benefits to the client.
  • Collaborate with capture leads, sales and subject matter experts to gather technical content, case studies, CVs and evidence that substantiate claims and meet compliance criteria.
  • Develop pricing narratives and commercial commentary in partnership with pricing teams and finance to justify cost models, assumptions and commercial risk mitigation.
  • Produce compelling executive summaries and customer-focused value propositions that align with evaluation criteria and procurement priorities.
  • Manage bid timelines, task allocation and milestone tracking using project management tools and bid calendars; escalate risks and dependencies to bid leadership.
  • Ensure all deliverables meet quality assurance standards by performing comprehensive proof reads, compliance checks, risk assessments and version control.
  • Customize standard content libraries, templates and boilerplate to reflect the opportunity’s specific requirements, sector language and client context.
  • Facilitate and document bid workshops, win strategy sessions and capture interviews to capture knowledge, assign actions and align stakeholders.
  • Coordinate with legal and commercial teams to identify and address contractual deviations, terms and conditions, and to prepare clarifications or redlines when necessary.
  • Produce and maintain clear, audit-ready bid documentation including annexes, appendices, certifications and mandatory forms requested by the buyer.
  • Manage external contributors such as sub-contractors and partners to secure required content, compliance evidence and timely sign-offs for consortium bids.
  • Prepare and rehearse client-facing pitch materials, presentations and Q&A packs that reflect the written submission and address evaluators’ likely concerns.
  • Monitor tender portals and buyer communications, prepare and submit final bid packages via e-tendering systems (e.g., BravoSolution, Proactis, In-Tend), and confirm receipt and completeness.
  • Conduct post-submission debrief requests, collect evaluator feedback and lead lessons-learned sessions to capture improvement actions for future bids.
  • Maintain and curate a central bid library of case studies, past performance summaries, CVs, templates and reusable content to accelerate future responses.
  • Ensure compliance with sector-specific regulations and standards (e.g., ISO, NHS, public sector procurement rules, OJEU/Find a Tender requirements) in all bid content.
  • Translate complex technical or operational information into clear, client-focused language that non-technical evaluators can easily understand and score highly.
  • Assess and document bid/no-bid decisions, provide commercial recommendations and support go/no-go governance with evidence-based scoring.
  • Track and report bid performance metrics (win rate, bid cost, time-to-response) to stakeholders and use data to refine bid processes and resource allocation.
  • Support ethical and diversity strategies in bid responses by capturing supplier diversity plans, social value commitments and sustainability credentials.

Secondary Functions

  • Train and mentor junior bid writers, coordinators and subject-matter contributors on best practice response writing, template use and compliance checks.
  • Maintain and improve bid processes, playbooks and standard operating procedures to improve efficiency, quality and win rates.
  • Support CRM and pipeline hygiene by logging bid outcomes, lessons learned and opportunity metadata to ensure accurate sales forecasting.
  • Assist capture teams with early-stage qualification, competitor analysis and win strategy research to shape bid positioning before RFPs are issued.
  • Produce targeted marketing and capability statements for business development activities and pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQs).
  • Undertake market and buyer research to populate bid intelligence packs with customer priorities, procurement history and typical scoring behavior.
  • Support ad-hoc stakeholder requests for case studies, references and evidence to support commercial negotiations post-award.
  • Contribute to governance and compliance audits and assist internal teams with information retrieval for procurement surveys and third-party assessments.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • RFP / RFQ / RFI response development: expert-level experience drafting compliant, scored bid responses and mandatory documentation.
  • Tender portal and e-procurement systems: hands-on experience submitting bids through portals such as Proactis, BravoSolution, In-Tend, and Delta eSourcing.
  • Proposal management tools: proficiency with RFPIO, Qvidian, Loopio or other proposal automation platforms and content libraries.
  • Commercial & pricing literacy: ability to interpret pricing schedules, produce pricing narratives and work with finance to articulate margins and assumptions.
  • Contract and procurement knowledge: practical knowledge of public procurement rules (OJEU/Find a Tender), contractual terms, and common legal risk areas.
  • Advanced Microsoft Office: high-level Word (styles, templates, cross-references), Excel (modelling, VLOOKUP, pivot tables) and PowerPoint for pitch decks.
  • Quality assurance and compliance checking: systematic approach to compliance matrices, scoring matrices and bid checklists.
  • Industry-specific technical understanding: ability to convert technical, engineering or service delivery detail into client-focused narratives (sector-specific as required).
  • Content management and version control: experience maintaining libraries, master templates and version histories in SharePoint or similar systems.
  • Data-driven bid analytics: ability to capture and interpret bid performance data and use it to iterate on bid strategy and resource allocation.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional written and verbal communication with the ability to tailor tone and messaging for buyers and evaluators.
  • Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional coordination skills to elicit timely inputs and secure approvals.
  • Meticulous attention to detail and accuracy under tight deadlines to ensure compliant and error-free submissions.
  • Strategic thinking and commercial awareness to develop winning value propositions and assess bid viability.
  • Time management and prioritisation skills to balance multiple simultaneous deadlines and bids in flight.
  • Resilience and the ability to work effectively in high-pressure, deadline-driven environments.
  • Creative problem solving to reframe weaknesses into mitigations and to identify compelling differentiators.
  • Persuasion and negotiation skills when aligning internal contributors and advocating for commercial positions.
  • Team leadership and mentoring capability to coach more junior writers and improve team output.
  • Adaptability and continuous improvement mindset to refine processes, incorporate feedback and adopt new tools.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business, English, Marketing, Communications, Law, Procurement, Engineering, or related discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Professional certification such as APMP (Foundation or Practitioner), Bid Management Institute credentials, or formal training in proposal management.
  • Continued professional development in commercial, procurement, or sector-specific training (e.g., public sector procurement courses).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • English / Professional Writing / Journalism
  • Marketing / Communications
  • Law / Contract Law
  • Engineering / Technical Discipline (for technical bids)
  • Procurement / Supply Chain Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–7 years working on bids, proposals or tenders; junior roles may start at 1–2 years, mid-level at 3–5 years, senior at 5+ years.

Preferred: 3–5+ years of direct bid writing experience with demonstrable success in winning responses, experience across public and private sector tenders, familiarity with major tender portals, and exposure to commercial pricing and contractual negotiation.

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