Commercial & Procurement Senior Lawyer

Grade A - £52,737 to £63,045 (National Framework) or £58,409 to £68,717 (London Framework – if you are London office based or home-based and live within the boundary of the M25).

There is also an additional Homeworking Allowance of £581 per annum for those working from home and a Recruitment & Retention Allowance of £2,500 per annum.

Contracted Hours: Full time, 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Location: We can offer home-based working or office-based working

Closing date: Sunday 4 May 2025 at 11.59pm

This role is NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

Are you committed to helping us regulate health and social care within England?

When thinking about what drives you every day in your job, what keeps you motivated and passionate about your work, what comes to mind? For 3,000+ people at the CQC, we end each day knowing that we have made a difference to the lives of those most in need in our communities. We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and encourage care services to improve. We are looking for people who are caring, demonstrate integrity, and work well as part of a team to join with us and share in this sense of achievement. If you would like to help us make a positive impact on health and social care within England, then read on.

Why this could be a great role for you...

As a Senior Lawyer specialising in commercial contracts and public procurement, you will undertake complex contract and commercial work, including the provision of legal advice, drafting, negotiating, and concluding contracts.

You will ensure that decisions taken by the CQC are legally robust by identifying legal risks early and working with case teams and Groups to ensure that these are managed appropriately, providing legal advice with solutions focused on commercial contracts and public procurement requirements, practices, and processes as appropriate.

You will lead an impressive team of legal professionals and work across the Legal Services function to deliver legal advice and guidance throughout CQC.

What we can offer you...

Your health and wellbeing are important to us and are supported through our benefits scheme:

- 27 days' leave per year, rising to 32.5 days with length of service, plus bank holidays (usually 8 days per year).
- Opportunities and support for in-house and external training and development.
- Free, unlimited access to Headspace meditation app.
- Sports and gym discounts.
- Free employee assistance service 24 hours a day.
- NHS pension scheme, with around a 14% employer contribution.
- Discounts to high street stores, supermarkets, restaurants, and more.
- Eligibility to apply for a Blue Light Card, which costs £4.99 and is valid for 2 years.
- Fleet home electronics and car leasing salary sacrifice scheme.
- Cycle to work scheme up to the value of £5,000.
- Internal reward scheme where you could win a voucher or two!

We want to make working for CQC a great experience for everyone, and to role model a diverse and representative culture. To support an inclusive environment where colleagues feel empowered to bring their whole selves to work, we support a variety of staff networks, including the Race Equality Network, LGBT+ Equality Network, Carers Equality Network, Disability Equality Network and Gender Equality Network.

What you will bring...

You are a confident and experienced legal professional, with excellent knowledge and experience of contract, commercial, and public procurement law, including caseload management, practices, and processes.

You will also be experienced in managing and developing junior colleagues, and as a senior lawyer, you will work closely with your Legal Manager to help run the Central Legal Services team.

We will expect you to form strong relationships with key stakeholders inside and outside the legal team. You will be proactive in your work and support CQC in driving forward its new and ambitious strategy. You will engage in high-profile commercial programmes such as Registration Transformation and Regulatory Platform to enable CQC to achieve its aim of becoming a world-class regulator.

For an informal discussion or further information on the role, please contact Nimali de Silva, Director of Legal Services, Nimali.DeSilva@cqc.org.uk or Ayo Owusuh, Legal Manager, Central Legal Services Ayo.Owusuh@cqc.org.uk

Individual adjustments...

We are committed to being open and transparent around our processes and we endeavour to offer every candidate the opportunity to perform at their best throughout the recruitment process. We seek to support candidates to identify potential challenges and work with them to identify and facilitate reasonable adjustments as appropriate. Should you require assistance and/or would like to request a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, please contact a member of the team via email: recruitment@cqc.org.uk.

CQC is committed to promoting a fair and inclusive workplace where all our people can flourish and reach their full potential. We know diverse teams allow for a more creative and productive environment and therefore encourage applications from everyone regardless of: age, gender/sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

For this role, we are particularly encouraging people from ethnically diverse communities and people with a disability to apply, who are currently under-represented at this level in the organisation.

Candidates must ensure that all information provided in their application is detailed in their own words and is factually accurate. Any examples provided must be taken from personal experience. CQC abides by honesty and integrity as part of its core values; if evidence of plagiarism or generating answers from other sources is found, applications may be withdrawn.

Our Values

Excellence – Meeting our challenge to be a high-performing organisation
Caring – Treating everyone with dignity and respect
Integrity – Demonstrating our passion for ‘doing the right thing’
Teamwork – Enabling us to be the best we can

For further information or to apply, please click on the 'Enquire/Apply' button below.