Better places, thriving communities.
Commercial Manager – Prison Contracts
Mitie Care & Custody
Reporting to: Head of Commercial – Immigration & Justice
The Role
Mitie Care & Custody is looking for an experienced Commercial Manager to lead the commercial governance of the Millsike Prison Contract and support other prison contracts across the justice portfolio.
This role has end‑to‑end responsibility for commercial delivery across the contract lifecycle, with a strong focus on mobilisation, transition into service, and steady‑state performance. You will ensure contracts are mobilised effectively, managed compliantly, and deliver against financial and performance targets.
You will play a key role in the mobilisation of new prison contracts, setting up robust commercial processes, controls, and governance arrangements from contract award onward. Working closely with operational, finance, legal, and mobilisation teams, you will ensure commercial readiness, risk management, and compliance from day one.
Acting as a trusted commercial partner to senior stakeholders, clients, and government bodies, you will provide practical commercial insight that supports decision‑making and improves contract performance.
Key Responsibilities
1. Lead commercial governance for the Millsike Prison Contract and wider prison portfolio.
2. Act as the primary commercial contact, supporting operational teams to deliver compliant, sustainable, and profitable contracts.
3. Play a lead commercial role in contract mobilisation, ensuring all commercial and financial arrangements are in place at service commencement.
4. Establish and embed effective commercial processes, controls, and governance frameworks.
5. Manage the full contract lifecycle, including contract interpretation, variations, change control, and performance mechanisms.
6. Monitor KPIs, payment mechanisms, and service credits, supporting challenge and resolution where required.
7. Support financial modelling, budgeting, and forecasting, including mobilisation costs and risks.
8. Identify, manage, and escalate commercial and contractual risks in line with governance requirements.
9. Lead or support commercial input into negotiations, claims, and disputes.
10. Build strong relationships with operational leaders, finance, legal teams, and external stakeholders.
11. Provide clear, pragmatic commercial advice to senior management.
12. Deliver guidance and training to operational teams to strengthen commercial understanding and compliance.
About You
13. Proven experience managing complex contracts, ideally within prison, justice, immigration, or wider public sector environments.
14. Strong commercial and financial acumen with the ability to manage risk and optimise performance.
15. Confident working closely with operational teams in a regulated environment.
16. Able to interpret complex contractual and financial information and provide practical solutions.
17. Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
18. Organised, disciplined, and comfortable working in a high‑accountability setting.
Additional Information
19. Applicants must have resided in the UK for the past five years and have the right to work in the UK.
20. The role requires Enhanced DBS and CTC clearance.
21. This role is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.
Our market-leading offering provides you with benefits that suit your lifestyle.
We have a virtual GP on hand for you and members of your household. So you can get expert advice by video or phone without having to leave your home. We offer financial wellbeing assistance through our Salary Finance scheme. For example, you could access 50% of your earned pay before payday for a small fee. Salary Finance also offers competitive loans.
When you join us, we’ll give you a link to our flexible lifestyle benefits platform, Choices. You might choose to purchase up to five extra days’ holiday each year. You might buy critical illness insurance, seek dental treatment or buy technology products at an affordable cost. There are many choices!
We give you access to high street discounts from thousands of well-known retailers, gyms and more through our MiDeals platform. And we have a cycle-to-work scheme. Life cover of up to four times your salary is available. We also offer enhanced pension contributions, a save-as-you-earn scheme, and a Mitie Matching Share Plan (you could even be awarded free shares in Mitie).
We award our employees with Mitie Stars as recognition for their hard work. There are cash prizes up for grabs each month and at the end of the year there’s a chance to scoop a top prize of £10,!
Our success is a direct result of the experience and quality of our people. Progressing your career is therefore a top priority for us. We offer a diverse variety of training and development avenues via a wide selection of learning resources to suit you.
We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long-term condition (for example dyslexia, anxiety, autism, a mobility condition or hearing loss) and need us to make any reasonable adjustments, changes or do anything differently during the recruitment process, please let us know by emailing Karen Hayes at .