Head of Growth and Business Development - Defence

JOB DESCRIPTION

Help shape the future of Sopra Steria’s growth in UK Defence.

This is a high-impact leadership role at the heart of our Aerospace, Defence and Security business, responsible for driving growth across the UK Defence digital market. From setting strategy and identifying opportunities, through to shaping investment-ready propositions and handing them into the strategic sales process, this role owns the front end of the growth agenda. Working closely with senior stakeholders across the MoD, industry and internal leadership teams, you will turn market insight into a clear, prioritised growth roadmap and build the relationships, pipeline and momentum needed to deliver long-term success.

This role is hybrid, with candidates being ideally located in South East, with travel to London and Corsham anticipated.

What you'll be doing:

• Define and lead a 3–5 year Defence growth strategy and roadmap, aligned to wider ADS and corporate objectives, and drive early-stage shaping activity across the strategic account.
• Build and maintain senior relationships across Defence (MoD, military, civil service and industry) to strengthen market access, insight and influence.
• Own stakeholder mapping and engagement plans, coordinating activity across sales, marketing, delivery and partners to maintain strong momentum.
• Translate market, policy and competitor insight into clear, prioritised opportunities and growth initiatives within the Defence sector.
• Qualify and shape priority opportunities through internal governance, ensuring they are investment-ready with defined propositions, commercial approach and win strategy ahead of sales handover.
• Lead alignment across internal teams and partners, ensuring propositions, pre-sales investment and pipeline development are focused on Defence priorities and support successful bid outcomes.

What you’ll bring:

• Deep knowledge of the UK Defence sector, ideally with a focus on digital transformation and technology-led solutions.
• Proven experience operating in a strategic sales, business development or client leadership role within complex, high-value environments.
• Strong strategic thinking capability, with experience developing and delivering multi-year growth plans and opportunity pipelines.
• Ability to build and influence senior stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally, including at executive level.
• Broad technical understanding to support solution shaping and credible engagement across consulting, delivery and sales teams.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to align stakeholders, drive collaboration and influence outcomes.

If you’re interested in this role but not sure if your skills and experience are exactly what we’re looking for, please do apply, we’d love to hear from you!

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent
Location: London/Corsham
Security Clearance Level : Minimum MOD SC (with no impediments to Developed Vetting), DV preferred
Internal Recruiter: Amy
Salary: Competitive
Benefits: Bonus, £6,600 car allowance, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy additional days, private medical, life assurance, pension, and generous flexible benefits fund.

Although this role is advertised as full-time, we believe that flexibility at work can promote work/life balance, increase your motivation, reduce stress and improves performance and productivity. We support different ways of working and can offer a range of flexible working arrangements. So, if you’re interested and need to work flexibly, we encourage you to apply and talk to us about what might be possible.

Loved reading about this job and want to know more about us?

Sopra Steria’s Aerospace, Defence and Security business designs, develops and deploys digital solutions to Central Government clients. The work we do makes a real difference to the client’s goal of National Security, and we operate in a unique and privileged environment. We are given time for professional development activities, and we coach and mentor our colleagues, sharing knowledge and learning from each other. We foster a culture in which employees feel valued and supported and have pride in their work for the customer, delivering outstanding rates of customer satisfaction in the UK’s most complex safety- and security-critical markets.