Pearson Engineering Ltd is a world leading provider of mine breaching and combat engineering equipment. Our product range is wide and varied, including complex attachments for armoured vehicles, remote controlled mine clearance systems, mine detection systems, robotics and autonomy.
Job Purpose
We are looking for a proactive, organised and enthusiastic Business Development Support Coordinator to provide day-to-day support to our Business Development team as we pursue ambitious global growth objectives.
Working within a defence manufacturing and engineering business, you will help ensure the team has the information, materials, systems and coordination needed to engage effectively with customers, understand market developments and pursue new business opportunities.
This is a varied, hands-on role suited to someone who enjoys getting things done, takes pride in being organised, is comfortable working across different tasks and is keen to learn about business development, defence markets and commercial operations.
You will support everything from preparing customer briefing packs and coordinating visits to monitoring defence procurement announcements, maintaining our CRM system, producing reports and helping the team adopt new business systems and AI tools.
The successful candidate will be:
• Proactive: someone who spots what needs doing and gets on with it.
• Organised: able to keep track of details, actions, deadlines and changing priorities.
• Practical: happy to take on a wide variety of tasks.
• Curious: keen to understand the business and how we win work.
• Technologically confident: interested in systems, data and finding better ways to work.
• Collaborative: comfortable working with different teams and building relationships.
• Reliable: someone the team can depend on to deliver tasks accurately and on time.
Key Responsibilities
Business Development Support
1. Provide day-to-day practical support to the Business Development team, helping ensure activities and priorities are organised and progressed.
2. Coordinate meetings, customer visits, internal reviews and stakeholder engagements, including diary management, logistics, agendas and follow-up actions.
3. Prepare PowerPoint presentations, customer briefing packs, meeting notes and supporting documentation as required by the BD team.
4. Support the development and maintenance of customer and stakeholder maps, helping the team understand relationships, contacts and engagement priorities.
5. Monitor defence procurement announcements, contract awards, tender notices, government publications, industry news and other relevant market developments.
6. Maintain spreadsheets, trackers and reporting templates, ensuring information is accessible and up to date.
7. Undertake data mining and research tasks alongside the BD Strategy Manager to identify trends, gaps and useful insights for the Business Development team.
8. Attend events when required to support the Business Development team, help coordinate customer meetings and capture relevant contacts and market intelligence.
CRM Administration and Digital Tools
9. Act as the day-to-day point of contact for the team's new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
10. Help colleagues use the CRM correctly and consistently, providing practical guidance and escalating technical issues where required.
11. Monitor data quality, completeness and compliance with agreed processes and standards.
12. Produce regular CRM reports and help maintain dashboards, trackers and management information.
13. Support the development of guidance, processes and training materials to encourage consistent CRM adoption across the team and continuous improvements.
14. Assist with the rollout and integration of AI tools across the Business Development team, helping colleagues understand and adopt approved tools in their daily work.
15. Identify opportunities to simplify repetitive tasks, improve information sharing and make better use of digital tools.
16. Provide flexible support on additional projects and activities as business priorities evolve.
Skills/Experience
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple tasks and competing priorities.
• Excellent attention to detail, particularly when working with data, records and presentations.
• Good written and verbal communication skills.
• Confident using Microsoft Office, particularly PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Outlook.
• Willing to undertake both routine administrative tasks and more analytical work.
• Good interpersonal skills and confidence communicating with colleagues across different functions and levels of seniority.
• A desire to learn about new systems, and the latest digital tools and processes.
• A dependable approach, with the ability to follow tasks through to completion and ask for help when needed.
• Experience using AI tools to support research, administration, analysis or productivity would be ideal.
• Familiarity with CRM systems and maintaining accurate customer or opportunity records or a willingness to learn.
• Experience in business support, sales support, business development coordination, project administration, market research or a similar role is desirable but not essential.
Industry experience is not essential for the right candidate, provided that they have the skills, enthusiasm and organisational skills to learn.
Personal attributes and other requirements
• As a defence contractor, we have several security obligations placed upon the company, which means that all our staff must be able to successfully achieve the relevant security clearances.
• You will be expected to support in-house training programmes, as required.
Office based (in Newcastle upon Tyne) with some potential national and international travel depending on the business needs.