Bid Writer (Cape Town)

You're a strong writer and you like winning. You've put together proposals or bids that brought business in, and you're already thinking about what AI could do with them.

You'd find and win UK government contracts, frameworks and grants for iO-Sphere, full-time from Cape Town, working with our Head of Partnerships.

What you'd do

We're a UK training provider in data and AI. We run apprenticeships and train teams in companies and public bodies, and a lot of the work we want next is bought through tenders, frameworks and grant rounds, most of it in education and skills. You'd find the opportunities, decide with us which ones to go for, write the bids and get them in. We'd agree a target for what we win, and it'd be yours to hit.

We think AI is going to change bid writing completely, and we want to be ahead of it. We use AI for as much of this as we can, and we build our own tools to do it. BidNinja, our bid tool, uses Claude to read a bid pack and draft answers against the scoring criteria. We'd want you dreaming up the next ones and building them yourself with AI tools like Claude Code, whether that's a tool that spots the right tenders the day they're published or one that checks a bid before it goes in.

Your week

• Searching UK tender portals and grant rounds for the work we should be going for, and keeping our bid pipeline up to date.
• Joining buyer briefings and supplier events online, and getting to know commissioners and the partners we bid with.
• Reading each bid pack properly and making the go or no-go call with our Head of Partnerships.
• Writing the bids, including the method statements, case studies and social value answers, and getting what you need from the rest of the team.
• Keeping our library of past answers and evidence up to date, so we don't start from a blank page each time.
• Building your own AI tools for the slow parts of bidding, and making BidNinja better as you go.
• Getting feedback on every result, win or lose, and using it on the next one.

Lots of UK bid deadlines are at midday, which is early afternoon in Cape Town, so the hours work well. We'd ask for some flex when a big bid is due. We're a startup, so there'll be other things to pick up as we grow, and we'd expect you to help where it's needed.

Why you'd want it

You'd learn how the UK government buys from the inside, on a UK team, without leaving Cape Town. You'd take each bid from first spotting it to the contract being signed, and you'd get very good at building your own AI tools along the way.

We're a startup at an inflection point, and 2027 is when we scale. The bids you write are a big part of how we get there, and if you see a better way to run them, we'll actually do it.

Who you are

You're a writer first. You've written proposals, bids, tenders or grant applications that went to a buyer or a funder, and you can turn someone's rough notes into an answer an evaluator can score, inside the word limit. You've brought work in as well, whether that was in sales, business development or partnerships or by finding opportunities for your bid team, and you've had a target to hit. You can see how much AI could change bid writing, and you want to be the one who does it here. Ideally you've already built your own tools with AI, an automation or an agent say, using something like Claude Code, Cursor or n8n, and you could walk us through how it works. If you haven't yet, tell us what you'd build first and how you'd learn to do it. You don't need to be a developer. You're organised, and you chase people for their input without falling out with them.

You don't need to know UK procurement yet, because you'd pick it up on the job. It helps a lot if you've bid in the UK public sector or onto frameworks, or if you know UK education and skills, such as apprenticeships or further education. Grant bids to government or charitable funders help too.

We hire from junior to senior. You'll need excellent written English, because the bids are marked on the writing. The office is in Riverlands and you'd be in it some days, so you need to be in or near Cape Town. If that's you, we want to hear from you.

About iO-Sphere

We train people in data and AI by having them do the work. Over 1,000 people have trained with us, and companies including PwC, BAE Systems, Dunelm, Motorway and CBRE send their teams to us. We're one of the UK's fastest-growing data and AI training companies, and a small, tight-knit team that takes ownership, sets a high bar and has a lot of fun.

What the role must achieve

1. 1We see the right UK education and skills contracts, frameworks and grants early enough to bid well, and the go or no-go call is made on evidence.
2. 2Every bid goes in on time, compliant and written to the scoring criteria.
3. 3We get onto the frameworks that public bodies buy training through.
4. 4What we win meets the target agreed with the Head of Partnerships.
5. 5We have AI tools you thought of and built for the slow parts of bidding, and BidNinja gets better with every bid.

What you'll need

We shortlist against these, scored the same way for everyone:

• Bids, tenders, grant applications or proposals written and submitted to a buyer or funder
• Finding opportunities or bringing in new business yourself against a target, in a bid, sales, business development or partnerships role
• Running several pieces of work to fixed deadlines, gathering input from colleagues or partners
• Using AI at work beyond chat, ideally a tool, agent or automation you built yourself (for example with Claude Code, Cursor, n8n or Zapier)
• The right to work in South Africa
• Lives in or near Cape Town and can come into the Riverlands office

Good to have, but not needed:

• Bidding in the UK public sector or onto frameworks
• UK education and skills: apprenticeships, further education, adult skills or Skills Bootcamps funding
• Tools, agents or automations you've built yourself with AI, with a link or a GitHub we can look at
• Grant bids to government or charitable funders
• A bid or proposal management qualification, such as APMP