Location: Derby (Hybrid Working)
Contract: Permanent
Company: Arriva Road Transport Services (ARTS)
Are you a driven business development professional with a passion for creating new opportunities and building meaningful client relationships? Do you have the energy, resilience and ambition to help drive the next phase of growth for our business?
If you're looking for a role where your efforts directly influence business success, your ideas are valued, and your contributions make a genuine difference, we'd love to hear from you.
At Arriva Road Transport Services (ARTS), we exist to prove that alternative transport can be better than the journey it replaces. Every year, we deliver over 80,000 rail replacement journeys, facilitate more than 20,000 train crew taxi journeys, and provide dedicated frontline support to customers across the UK.
As we continue to grow, we're expanding into new markets and seeking a Commercial Bids Executive to help identify, develop and qualify new business opportunities across the UK's ground transport sector and beyond.
Reporting to the Head of Commercial Bids, you'll play a key role in generating and qualifying new business opportunities across a range of sectors. This is a predominantly new business-focused role, where you'll research markets, engage prospective clients and build a strong pipeline of opportunities that contribute to ARTS' growth ambitions.
Working closely with commercial and operational teams, you'll be responsible for identifying opportunities, arranging meetings, qualifying prospects and supporting opportunities through the early stages of the sales and tender lifecycle.
Identify and research new business opportunities across target sectors
Build and maintain a healthy pipeline of prospective clients and opportunities
Execute outbound prospecting activity through phone, email, LinkedIn and other channels
Identify key decision-makers and develop strategies to engage them
Monitor tender portals and procurement platforms for relevant opportunities
Track market trends, contract renewals and emerging opportunities that align with ARTS' growth plans
Arrange and attend introductory meetings with prospective clients
Qualify opportunities using structured assessment criteria
Prepare clear handover notes and briefings for bid and solution development teams
Maintain engagement with prospects throughout the sales process
Support the development of long-term client relationships
Maintain accurate and up-to-date CRM records
Track prospect activity, pipeline progression and engagement history
Gather and share market intelligence on competitors, procurement activity and industry developments
Support the development of commercial strategies through data-driven insights
Represent ARTS at industry events, exhibitions and networking opportunities
Build relationships with procurement teams, industry stakeholders and prospective clients
Collaborate with colleagues across Arriva to support wider growth initiatives
Help raise the profile of ARTS within target markets
Experience in business development, sales, account management or lead generation
A proven track record of identifying and developing new business opportunities
Strong prospecting skills across multiple channels, including telephone, email and LinkedIn
Experience maintaining and managing CRM systems
Excellent communication and relationship-building skills
Strong commercial awareness and the ability to identify strategic opportunities
Excellent organisation and pipeline management skills
A self-motivated, resilient and proactive approach to achieving results
Experience within transport, logistics, managed services, facilities management or a regulated B2B environment would be advantageous. Knowledge of tendering processes and procurement frameworks would also be beneficial.
At ARTS, you'll join a growing and ambitious business where you'll have the opportunity to make a direct impact on our future success.
We offer:
Competitive salary
Hybrid working
Free travel on Arriva branded rail services across the country
Arriva Village employee discounts
Employee Assistance Programme with 24-hour confidential support
Opportunities for professional development and career progression
If you're passionate about winning new business, building relationships and helping a growing organisation achieve its ambitions, we'd love to hear from you.
Arriva is the leading passenger transport operator in Europe, employing around 36,200 people and delivering 1.5 billion passenger journeys each year, with businesses across 11 European countries.
Our services include local buses (scheduled and demand-responsive); inter-urban commuter coaches; local, regional and national train services; waterbuses, bicycles and school transport.
We operate passenger transport services in Czech Republic; Croatia; Hungary; Italy; Netherlands; Poland; Slovakia; Slovenia, Spain and the UK. We also have a rolling stock leasing company in Romania.
