Guidance

Support for those new to managing contracts or new in role as a contract manager

Updated 29 October 2025

If you are newly into a role managing public sector contracts and suppliers, there is a wealth of resources, guidance, support, and training & development opportunities available to you as you develop in your role.

More and more different types of public sector organisations are starting to manage external suppliers and contractors.

As a result, this has widened the parameters of the need for people new to managing contracts. For example, central government departments undergoing changes or arms length agencies, local authorities, social housing providers, blue light services, and social/community organisations are now starting to manage contracts and suppliers.

You might be in a brand new stand-alone position within a smaller public sector organisation, or a role that now manages contracts as part of a wider allocation of work, or starting a new position within an existing contract management or commercial function within a larger organisation. It has never been more important to develop your skills. 

1. Scope of your role

The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply suggests that your role will likely take responsibility for managing contracts within your organisation, and adopting good practice for managing suppliers after the procurement processes in key areas such as managing supplier service delivery, mitigating risk, securing value for money, and ensuring suppliers conform to contractual terms, service level agreements (‘SLAs’) and key performance indicators (‘KPIs’)KPIs, 

The Government Functional Standard (Gov008) supported by the Commercial Continuous Improvement Framework provide guidance on the scope of contract management.

2. Skills and attributes

A great starting place is the [presentation] from the Contract Management Capability Programme’s Learning & Development Team on “What does a good contract manager look like, and what do they do?”.

The presentation shares the Contract Management Professional Standards: a set of behaviours, technical and enabling skills to which every good contract manager should align themselves.

The Standards should be used to guide newer contract management professionals throughout the public sector in their roles. These will help by:

• Formalising a baseline and a benchmark for the skills and attributes required
• Setting out the business acumen, contract leadership, and technical knowledge and skills needed to carry out contract management-related activities
• Highlighting key areas for learning & development
• Promoting the sharing of information and good practice.

Recently updated, the Standards cover:

• The key behaviours including; business acumen, commercial awareness, contract literacy and financial literacy, tenacity, decisive and clear thinking and political insight 
• Technical skills such as; supporting procurement, contract mobilisation, contract delivery and exit and transition
• Enabling skills such as; relationships and stakeholder management, change control and risk management.

The Contract Management Professional Standards form the basis for the Contract Management Capability Programme’s training and accreditation opportunities. Should you identify any gaps in your knowledge or experience early on in your role, a good starting place is the Foundation accreditation programme (see below in section 5). 

3. Operational good practice

Seek out your organisation’s contract management policy, and guidance such as any strategy, toolkit or tiering guide. Or, how managing contracts fits into the wider commercial strategy/plan.

If you are in a stand-alone role or small cross-functional team, there is a helpful contract management toolkit (within the ‘Good practice’ folder in the ‘Resources’ tab on Central government and wider public sector contract management network on K-Hub) as developed by the Cabinet Office & HM Treasury’s contract management function, some other short guidance, and also the Contract Management Capability Programme’s contract tiering guide.

These all cover likely key areas of activity;

• Contract implementation
• Tiering categories
• Operations
• Performance management
• Risk
• Contingency
• Managing change
• Supplier relationships
• Disputes
• Escalations
• Finance
• Value for money
• Continuous improvement
• Benchmarking
• Contract exit and transition.

4. Access to resources

A useful signposting to good practice resources and information all in one place is the Contract Management Good Practice Guide from the Contract Management Capability Programme.

There is a Contract Management Playbook due to be published at some stage during late 2025.

Whilst not specific to managing contracts, the Sourcing Playbook is nonetheless a useful source of references for stages prior to the award of the contract, and covers; commissioning and managing consultants, key performance indicators, social value, improved delivery model assessments, and the ‘Should Cost Model’ offering.

As a sister guide to the good practice contract management framework, the National Audit Office has also produced Commercial and contract management: insights and emerging best practice. 

5. Learning & development available from the Contract Management Capability Programme

To access the two resources below,  firstly you’ll need to register with, and log-in to, Government Commercial College. This is the learning and development platform through which online training and accreditation courses within commercial and contract management capability can be undertaken.

The Government Commercial College delivers commercial and contract management training, accreditation and learning from the Government Commercial Function. For new contract managers, the following two programmes from the Contract Management Capability Programme are recommended.

Foundation accreditation

The starting place for your learning and development when new to managing public contracts is the Contract Management Capability Programme’s Foundation accreditation course.

The six e-learning modules cover: 

• Contract design and ongoing development; sustainable contracts, records and data, building relationships, performance management
• Procurement and mobilisation; the essentials of procurement regulations, supporting a commercial team, planning for the mobilisation of a contract
• Managing contract delivery; mobilisation, ensuring optimum performance, managing disputes, exit or transition to a new contract
• Change control; the change process, governance, stakeholders, tools & documentation 
• Stakeholder engagement; stakeholder mapping, interest and influence, effective engagement, communications
• Managing risk; risks and issues, risk management, common risk

The course is centrally funded so it comes at no cost to you or your organisation. Accreditation is secured after an online, multiple choice assessment. Foundation accreditation is needed as a base to progress to Practitioner (operational level) or Expert (strategic level) accreditations.

Beyond Foundation

A ‘dip in, dip out’ development programme, Beyond Foundation will help you bridge any gaps after Foundation before you’re ready for the next level of accreditation. Each of the different modules elaborate on key themes within contract management. It is also used as a general developmental resource or for revision.

Each lasting around 60 minutes, the nine videos cover:

• Design and ongoing development
• Procurement
• Mobilisation
• Contract delivery; finance, performance management, change management (three videos)
• Exit and transition
• Stakeholder engagement
• Risk management

6. Other learning & development and good practice resources

The Contract Management Capability Programme also champions good practice and offers some wider resources that will be particularly helpful to new contract managers. This [guide] provides some details.

The Central government and wider public sector contract management network platform is a resource with good practice advice, updates, topical items and content, articles, webinar presentations store, and information on training & development opportunities.

The Contract Management Capability Programme also provides a monthly Bulletin update and a comprehensive programme of fortnightly webinars (free of charge), each one lasting about 50 minutes. For more details of these, and how to access them, email richard.waft@cabinetoffice.gov.uk