Role Summary
The Market Development Manager sits within the Adult Social Care Commissioning and Market Development service, leading work to ensure local care and support markets are sustainable, high‑quality, and responsive to changing needs. The team works across commissioning, contract management and market shaping to meet the Council's statutory market‑shaping duties and deliver better outcomes for people who use services.
In this role, you will provide leadership for market development activity, driving innovation, efficiency, and quality across adult social care provision. You will strengthen provider relationships, oversee key projects, and use market intelligence and insight to identify gaps in provision, manage risk, and support the delivery of sustainable care options aligned to the Council's Market Position Statement and wider strategic priorities.
By shaping markets proactively, embedding commercial best practice, and leading benefit tracking and value‑for‑money activity, the Market Development Manager helps the organisation manage financial and market pressures, improve service resilience, and support long‑term planning.
Your work directly influences commissioning decisions, supports inclusive growth and local enterprise, and ensures adult social care markets contribute to community wellbeing, economic participation, and positive outcomes for residents across Cambridgeshire.
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network "IDEAL" and self‑organised peer support groups, help us foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered. We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and to take meaningful action.
Key Responsibilities
Lead the development of local care and support markets to keep them vibrant, good quality and sustainable, meeting the authority's changing needs and statutory market‑shaping duties.
Drive innovation and efficiency across commissioning, contract management and procurement activities, identifying and delivering cost‑effective solutions that enhance service oversight of quality, financial sustainability and long‑term resilience.
Optimise approaches to sourcing, contracting and enabling supplier engagement – embedding robust pricing reviews and commercial challenge to maximise value for money.
Provide commercial leadership and direction within a range of commissioning projects and contract management mechanisms, strengthening the Council's commercial mindset and embedding best practice across teams.
Champion market and supply chain development, supporting the authority's broader place‑based agenda by fostering diverse, resilient and locally rooted market ecosystems.
Champion inclusive growth, support local providers, and ensure markets contribute meaningfully to community wellbeing, economic regeneration and strategic policy outcomes.
Be responsible for savings and benefit tracking and management, ensuring that planned efficiencies, service improvements and commercial gains are clearly defined, monitored and realised across all relevant programmes and initiatives.
Ensure sufficiency forecasts and strategies are continuously reviewed and exploited, resulting in commissioning arrangements that proactively address community needs and adapt to emerging trends.
Deputise for your manager from time to time.
Key Qualifications
Hands‑on strategy development experience, team collaboration and direct involvement in long‑term planning activities to deliver organisational goals.
Previous leadership of the identification and delivery of continuous improvement and efficiency opportunities, supporting benefit realisation through robust tracking and performance monitoring.
Experience of project and resource management, risk governance, market stewardship and the management of provider/market failure.
Proven ability to identify and deliver improvement, efficiency or transformation opportunities through commissioning, market and commercial strategy development within care and support sectors, and a proven track record of delivering measurable commercial outcomes through commissioning, procurement and supplier engagement.
Experience in contract evaluation and lifecycle processes, compliance protocols and risk assessment, and the ability to demonstrate experience of embedding commercial awareness across multi‑disciplinary teams and influencing senior decision‑makers.
Benefits
We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage. Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.
* A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
* Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro‑rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
* Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
* Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
* Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
* Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
* Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
* Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
* An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in‑store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes
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