Bid Marketing Coordinator

A Bid Marketing Coordinator helps companies win work by supporting the production of bids and tenders — the formal documents a business submits when competing for a contract, often with public sector bodies or large private clients. The marketing side means handling the presentation, written content, branding and supporting material: case studies, CVs of staff, project photos, graphics and design templates. You typically sit in a bid team or marketing team and work to deadlines set by the client's submission date, which cannot be moved.

Starting salary: £24k–£30k
Live graduate jobs: 1 open now
Main way in: Direct entry as a bid coordinator, bid support, or marketing…
They usually ask for: A degree is commonly asked for but the subject genuinely does…

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £24,000–£30,000 to start, though this varies widely by employer, sector and location — London and large construction or consultancy firms sit at the higher end, smaller regional employers lower.

What you'd actually do

Formatting and laying out bid documents in Word or InDesign so they match the company's brand and the client's required structure, page limits and font sizes
Updating the library of reusable content — standard company descriptions, policy statements, accreditations, health and safety information — so bid writers can pull accurate text rather than rewriting it each time
Writing and refreshing case studies and project profiles, which usually means chasing a project manager or engineer for the facts and turning their notes into something readable
Keeping CVs of technical staff current and tailoring them to the specific job being bid for, since many tenders ask for named team members' experience

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Tracking submission deadlines and the internal review schedule, and reminding contributors that their section is due — a lot of the job is polite, persistent chasing
Sourcing or commissioning photography, diagrams, site plans and infographics, and doing basic image editing
Proofreading the final document against the tender's compliance requirements, checking every question has been answered and nothing exceeds the word count, then uploading it to the client's e-tendering portal

How graduates get in

Direct entry as a bid coordinator, bid support, or marketing assistant — this is the most common route, and these jobs are frequently advertised at entry level rather than as graduate schemes
Moving across from a marketing or communications assistant role within the same company, which is very common in construction, engineering and professional services firms where marketing and bid teams overlap
Internships or placement years in marketing at a construction, consultancy or facilities management firm — a placement year is particularly useful because these sectors recruit heavily from people who already understand them
Starting in an administrative or document control role and being given bid work, which happens more often than people expect in contracting businesses

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Graduate schemes exist but are unusual for this specific title; larger consultancies and contractors more often run general business or marketing graduate schemes that can include a rotation through bids or 'work winning'
Some people come in from agency side or from a journalism/copywriting background, bringing the writing and editing skills and learning the sector afterwards

What employers ask for

A degree is commonly asked for but the subject genuinely does not matter much. Marketing, English, communications, business and journalism are typical; so are unrelated subjects if you can show you write clearly
Evidence of strong written English and attention to detail — expect to be asked for a writing sample or set a proofreading or formatting exercise at interview
Competence in Microsoft Word beyond the basics (styles, section breaks, templates, tables of contents). This is asked for far more seriously than people expect, because bid documents are long and structurally complex
Adobe InDesign and Photoshop are frequently listed. At some employers they are essential; at others, design is outsourced and Word skills matter more. Check the advert

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Grade requirements vary and are often not specified. Where they are, a 2:1 is the usual ask, but a 2:2 with relevant placement or portfolio experience is often accepted in this field
Professional qualifications are not needed to enter. The APMP (Association of Proposal Management Professionals) Foundation certification is the recognised bid qualification and employers often fund it once you're in; CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) qualifications are an alternative if the role leans more marketing

Skills that matter

Document formatting and version control

Bids are assembled from contributions by many people under time pressure, and you are the person who makes sure the final file is consistent, correctly numbered and the right version.

Editing other people's technical writing

Engineers and project managers write accurately but densely, and your job is to make their content answer the client's question in plain language without changing the facts.

Working backwards from a fixed deadline

A tender submitted a minute late is normally rejected outright, so you plan review stages, sign-offs and upload time around an immovable date.

Compliance checking

Tenders specify exactly what must be submitted and in what format, and missing a single required document or exceeding a page limit can disqualify an otherwise strong bid.

Chasing people who outrank you

Much of the content comes from senior technical staff who are busy on live projects, and getting it out of them on time is a real and underrated part of the job.

Basic graphic design and visual layout

Evaluators read many similar submissions, and a clear, well-laid-out document with good diagrams is easier to score well.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Bid Marketing Coordinator or Bid Coordinator — supporting documents, formatting, content library, chasing contributors
Bid Writer or Proposal Writer — you start drafting the substantive answers yourself rather than assembling other people's, which usually means learning the technical content of the sector properly
Bid Manager — you own whole submissions, decide the win strategy, run the kick-off and review meetings and manage the contributors. This step typically takes several years but timelines vary widely by sector and company size
Senior Bid Manager, Head of Bids or Work Winning Manager — running a team, deciding which opportunities the company bids for at all, and reporting on win rates to the board
Alternative directions are common: sideways into marketing and communications management, into account or client relationship management, or into freelance and contract bid work, which is a well-established market with day rates that reflect deadline pressure

What people get wrong

“It's a marketing job, so it'll be about campaigns, social media and brand.”

Most of the work is document production and deadline management for one specific client at a time. The 'marketing' refers to presenting the company persuasively in a tender, not to outbound marketing activity — although in smaller firms you may do both.

“It's an admin role with a nicer title, and therefore a dead end.”

Bids are how contracting and consultancy businesses generate revenue, so the function is commercially central. Experienced bid managers are in genuine demand and the freelance market is active, which is unusual for a role people often dismiss as support.

“You need to understand the technical subject matter to be useful.”

You learn it on the job. What employers actually screen for is whether you can take messy technical input and make it clear, compliant and on time — subject knowledge builds over your first year or two.

“Deadlines are flexible like most office work.”

Public sector tenders in particular close at a precise time on a precise date via an electronic portal, and late means excluded. This makes the job genuinely spiky — quiet periods followed by intense ones, including occasional late finishes before a submission.

Where this varies

The role differs a lot by sector and company size. In construction, engineering, facilities management and infrastructure — where most of these jobs are — bids are frequent, formal and heavily driven by public procurement rules, so the work is structured and process-led. In professional services (law, accountancy, architecture, recruitment) the equivalent role is often called 'pursuits', 'proposals' or 'business development executive' and tends to involve more client-relationship and pitch-presentation work. At a small firm you may be the entire bid and marketing function, doing website updates, award entries and events alongside tenders; at a large contractor you'll be one of a specialist team with separate writers, designers and bid managers, and your remit will be narrower but deeper. Job titles in this field are inconsistent, so search for 'bid coordinator', 'proposals coordinator', 'work winning' and 'tender coordinator' as well.

See all 1 live Bid Marketing Coordinator jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.