The proposal (i.e. the written submission) is just one important milestone to winning new business. There are many other activities that must be managed to ensure the award of new business – some happen long before the proposal (RFP) arrives, others a considerable time after. These activities collectively form what we call the Bid Lifecycle. The Bid Manager will focus on the broader range of Bid Lifecycle phases (Proposal is just one) while the Proposal Manager is almost entirely dedicated to managing the proposal itself (or rather the response to the RFI/RFP). More detail can be found here.

Average bid salaries in the UK are heavily influenced by industry, location, gender, experience and qualifications. It’s important to take account of these factors if benchmarking bid salaries within your organisation. Bid Solutions deliver the most comprehensive salary data for the UK Bid Profession. The 2025 UK Salary Survey lists the average salaries of all core bid roles as follows:

Head of Bid Management: £81,101
Head of Proposal Management: £74,341
Head of Bid Writing: £61,930
Bid Manager: £58,886
Proposal Manager: £54,348
Bid Writer: £45,884
Bid Coordinator: £40,184.

The average day rate for contractors and self-employed consultants can be found on page 36 of the 2025 Salary Report.

You can view the full 2025 salary survey report here. If you need more detailed analysis or a bid salary benchmarking exercise specific to your organisation, please do contact the team.

There are an incredible number of job titles in the bid and proposal profession – 283 were recorded in the Bid Solutions 2025 UK Salary Survey. We believe there are 6 core job roles that most of these 283 could align with:

Bid Manager
Proposal Manager
Proposal Writer
Bid Coordinator
Graphic Designer
Knowledgebase Manager

It’s important to note that job titles differ depending on geographical location and industry. Within each job description we provide a number of alternative job titles that may be more familiar to you.

For the six core roles, we typically recruit at four levels:

• Entry Level / Apprentice – No formal industry qualifications. Less than 2 years’ experience
• Skilled – APMP or other recognised industry qualifications
• Managerial – Team Leader role or Team Manager with direct reports outside of live bids
• Director – Multi-industry / geography experience and manage large bid and proposal teams

If you are finding the plethora of terminology confusing or difficult to grasp and would like help creating or updating job specifications, help is at hand. Please contact a member of our team on 0208 1583952 or book a meeting here.

Our Bid Team Hiring Guide provides advice and industry knowledge for establishing or growing your bid or proposal team. Whether you are hiring your first Bid Writer or seeking an experienced Head of Bid Management or Bid Director, our fully managed bid recruitment service meticulously follows a 10-step process to ensure your expectations are exceeded throughout. At key stages of the hiring process, we provide helpful advice regarding bid team job descriptions, interview techniques, candidate assessments, and market-tested salary benchmarks. One in every three interviews we arrange results in an offer of employment. Bid Solutions is committed to delivering an ethical and confidential recruitment process at all times.

For more information on our recruitment process, watch our recruitment video or contact the team.

Yes, we can. We take a collaborative approach to working with in-house recruitment teams, viewing it as a recruitment partnership. We understand that an in-house team might prefer to stay in control of the recruitment process, and our Direct Advertising Services allows them to do so.

We offer 3 different options for posting jobs and attracting candidates. You can review these here.

Our combined package has a 100% placement rate in 2025 and saves significant money on standard recruitment fees. You would simply need a resourcing team to manage the applications.

Your roles will feature in our direct job mailshot to 10,000+ subscribers and in addition we will proactively engage candidates that meet your specific requirements from our candidate / CRM system, which has over 10,000 active bid and proposal job seekers. Our website jobs page currently receives over 8000 unique visitors a month and over 22,000 page views. We are confident of giving your role maximum market exposure.

We’ve placed bid and proposal professionals into more than 900 client organisations across 50 sectors.

12,000+ registered candidates, 800+ independent consultants, and a following of 50,000+ bid professionals worldwide.