Business Development Manager (Cleaning Services)

Business Development Manager (Cleaning Services)

Join Kindred, a leading provider of cleaning services for schools and businesses across the UK. We are dedicated to creating positive, inclusive environments and pride ourselves on collaboration, connection, and community. As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

Job Description

In this pivotal role, you will be responsible for driving our growth by winning new cleaning and facilities service contracts, with a particular focus on the education sector. You will take full ownership of the sales process, from identifying and qualifying new leads to designing compelling solutions and closing deals. This is a hands‑on, target‑driven position that requires disciplined prospecting, exceptional stakeholder management, and strong commercial acumen.

Key Responsibilities

• Pipeline Ownership: Develop and maintain a robust pipeline with clear next steps, timelines and stakeholder maps; ensure opportunities progress with pace and purpose.
• Discovery & Qualification: Attend site visits and client meetings to understand client needs, pain points, budgets, decision processes and buying timelines.
• Solution & Proposal Development: Shape winning solutions with Operations and Finance, ensuring scope is clear, pricing is accurate and deliverability is robust.
• Tenders & Negotiation: Lead responses to commercial tenders and proposals, manage clarifications, present confidently, negotiate terms and close profitably.
• CRM, Reporting & Governance: Maintain excellent CRM discipline, produce accurate forecasts and pipeline reports, and ensure compliance with sales process and approval routes.
• Market Intelligence: Track competitor activity, pricing norms and sector trends; feed insights into positioning and proposition development.

Key Competencies

• Demonstrable success delivering new business revenue against targets.
• Consultative selling skill: structured discovery, value articulation, objection handling and stakeholder mapping.
• Commercial competence: understands pricing, cost drivers, margin protection and contract risk.
• Experience producing or leading high-quality proposals/tenders and presenting to decision‑making panels.
• Excellent CRM discipline and forecasting accuracy; confident reporting pipeline health and next actions.
• Strong collaboration with Operations and support teams to design deliverable solutions and smooth handover.

Minimum Criteria disclosure

We give full and fair consideration to all applicants. We will interview everyone who has declared they have a disability, or has served or is serving in the armed forces, if they meet the minimum criteria for the position.

We will support candidates with any reasonable adjustments that will assist them in going through our recruitment process and fulfilling the role itself.

Minimum Criteria for this role

• Proven B2B new business sales experience, with responsibility for generating and converting your own pipeline.
• Track record of winning contracts through a full sales cycle, from prospecting and qualification through to proposal, negotiation and close.
• Experience selling a contracted service or solution, rather than purely transactional/product sales.
• Experience preparing and presenting commercial proposals or tenders, including pricing and negotiation.
• Strong commercial awareness, with the ability to understand contract value, margins, pricing and client requirements.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, including confidence presenting to senior decision‑makers.
• Experience using a CRM system to manage opportunities, pipeline activity and forecasting.
• Ability to travel to client meetings and site visits across the relevant territory, with a full UK driving licence where driving is required for the role.

Additional Information

Kindred are proud to be a silver holder of the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme.

Kindred is a disability‑confident employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds. We will support any reasonable adjustments to ensure a safe and inclusive working environment.

About The Role

The Business Development Manager is responsible for winning new cleaning and facilities service contracts within the education sector. You will own the full sales cycle from target identification and first contact through qualification, solution design, pricing, proposal/tender submission and close. You will build and maintain a healthy pipeline, develop strategic relationships with decision makers, and work closely with Operations, Finance and Bid Support to create compelling, deliverable solutions. This role is hands‑on, target‑driven and requires disciplined prospecting, excellent stakeholder management, and strong commercial judgement.

We are looking for a proven track record of winning new business in a B2B environment, ideally within outsourced services. Experienced running end‑to‑end sales cycles, including prospecting, consultative discovery, proposal writing/tendering, commercial modelling and negotiation.

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