TLDR – The 30-second read
On most renewable projects, the engineering org chart gets staffed first and fills up fast. The commercial spine – the bids, contracts, procurement, cost and package-management roles that decide whether the build protects its margin – gets scoped last, and it is usually the thinnest part of the team. Across the roles Talesca has taken to market since 2024, this commercial and contracts layer has been a steady presence: around one in seven of all our briefs, spanning more than 40 distinct titles, dipping in 2025 and re-accelerating through 2026. When it is under-resourced on a contract-led build, the cost rarely shows up as a missed milestone. It shows up as variations, claims and scope disputes that no one has the capacity to manage.
The org chart that’s fully staffed in the wrong places
Picture a utility-scale wind or solar project 6 months out from financial close. The technical organisation is mapped in detail. There’s a Project Director, an engineering manager, discipline leads across electrical, civil and grid connection, a commissioning plan and, increasingly, a project controls function. That part of the chart is full.
Now look at the commercial side. Often it’s a Commercial Manager who hasn’t started yet, one contracts administrator borrowed from another project, and a procurement plan living in a spreadsheet. The people who will negotiate the EPC and balance-of-plant packages, hold the contract once it’s signed, and defend the project’s position when the first variation lands are the last roles to be scoped and the hardest to backfill at speed.
That imbalance is where margin quietly leaks. The engineering team builds the asset. The commercial team decides whether building it actually makes money.
What is the commercial spine on a renewables project?
It isn’t one role. It’s a layered function that runs the length of a project, and each layer hands off to the next. Walking it from front to back:
Bids and tendering. Before anything is built, someone has to win the work and price the risk. Bid managers, bid and tender engineers, and estimators set the commercial baseline. Get the estimate wrong here and every downstream team inherits the problem.
Contract administration and contract management. Once the EPC or package contracts are signed, contracts administrators and contracts managers hold them – tracking obligations, notices, variations and payment claims. On a renewables build this is rarely one tidy contract. It’s a turbine or module supply agreement, a balance-of-plant package, a grid-connection works package and a string of subcontracts, each with its own clock and its own risk profile.
Procurement. Procurement managers, specialists and buyers secure long-lead equipment and manage the supplier base. In a tight global market for transformers, switchgear and turbines, procurement timing is a schedule risk as much as a cost one.
Cost and commercial control. This is where the line with project controls matters, and it’s worth drawing clearly. Scheduling, planning and document control sit in project controls. The commercial spine is the contract, procurement and package side – the function that decides what the project is contractually owed and exposed to, not just where it sits against the baseline.
Package management – CBOP, EBOP and balance of plant. On larger wind and solar projects, owners often split the balance-of-plant scope into separate packages. Civil Balance of Plant (CBOP) covers earthworks, foundations, road construction, drainage, cable trenching and the civil infrastructure that prepares the site, while Electrical Balance of Plant (EBOP) covers medium-voltage cabling, substation construction, transformers, SCADA and grid-connection works. Package manages govern these scopes and the interfaces between them. Splitting balance of plant into civil and electrical packages can save cost, but it adds interface complexity that needs careful management around cable installation, substation commissioning and grid-connection milestones.
Commercial leadership. At the top sits Commercial Managers, Heads of Commercial and Directors – Commercial, who own the project’s overall commercial strategy and risk position. On programs running several projects at once, this layer is what keeps a consistent commercial approach across them.
This is the part of the conversation most recruiters can’t have. Knowing the difference between an EBOP package manager and a contracts administrator – and why you scope them at different points – is sector knowledge, not a keyword match.
Why does the commercial layer get scoped last?
Because technical roles feel urgent and commercial roles feel like they can wait. You can’t pour a foundation without a civil engineer, so the engineering hires get made first. The contracts manager, by contrast “can start once the contract’s signed”. The procurement lead “can come on when we’re ready to buy.”
The problem is that the commercial decisions with the longest tail are made earliest. The risk allocation written into the EPC and balance-of-plant contracts, the payment mechanisms, the variation procedures – these are locked in at the front of the project and lived with for years. Bringing the commercial spine in late means the people who have to manage those obligations had no hand in shaping them.
There’s also a market reason. Experienced commercial and contracts professionals in energy and infrastructure are not sitting idle. The good ones are on projects, and pulling ones across takes lead time most teams don’t build into their plan.
What does Talesca’s hiring data show about commercial roels?
We went back through the roles Talesca has taken to market since the start of 2024 and isolated the commercial, contracts and package-management layer.
Two things stand out.
The first is how consistent it is. Based on the roles we took to market between January 2024 and June 2026, the commercial and contracts spine has run at around one in seven of everything we’ve worked on. It dipped through 2025, in line with a broader pause in the market, then ran back up through 2026 to sit above where it was in 2024. This isn’t a spike tied to one announcement. It’s a structural, recurring share of demand.
The second, and the more teling, is the breadth. That layer spans more than 40 distinct job titles – from assistant estimators and contracts administrators through to bid managers, procurement specialists, CBOP and EBOP package managers, and Directors – Commercial. It runs across permanent, contract and retained engagements, and across wind, solar, BESS and gas. A function that shows up in 40-plus different titles isn’t a niche. It’s a spine.
We’d flag the obvious caveat: the share is directional, not a precise statistic, and we lean on the spread of roles, rather than a single percentage. But the pattern is clear enough to plan around.
What happens when commercial cover is thin on a contractor-led build?
This is where the timing matters most in 2026, because of how the pipeline is being delivered.
The Capacity Investment Scheme Tender 7 selected 19 projects to deliver 7.8 GW of renewable generation across the National Electricity Market, well above the 5 GW originally planned, all expected to be operational by 2030. As we’ve written about the contractor-led shape of that delivery, much of this work will be built by contractors against fixed delivery windows. That model puts the contract at the centre of everything.
A contractor-led build with thin commercial cover has a predictable failure mode. Variations get raised faster than anyone can assess them. Claims accumulate without a clear owner. Interface disputes between split packages – the civil contractor and the electrical contractor each pointing at the other over a cable termination or a substation handover – sit unresolved because no one has the bandwidth to govern the interface. None of this stops the project. It just erodes the margin, one un-managed variation at a time, and surfaces months later as a commercial problem that’s now expensive to unwind.
The roles that prevent this are exactly the ones that get scoped last.
What does good commercial resourcing look like?
The teams that get this right do three things differently.
They scope the commercial spine at the same time as the technical org chart, not after it. The contracts and procurement leads are mapped before financial close, because the decisions they manage are made before financial close.
They hire for the interface, not just the role. On a build with split CBOP and EBOP packages, the people who manage the seams between scopes are as important as the ones who manage the scopes themselves.
And they treat commercial leadership as a strategic hire, not a box to fill. A Commercial Manager or Director – Commercial who can hold the line across a multi-project program is a different proposition from a contracts administrator, and worth searching for properly.
If you’re planning headcount for a renewables build and the conversation so far has been about engineers and project managers, the question worth asking is who’s holding the contracts – and when they start.
Talk to us early about the commercial spine
Most workforce plans we see are strong on the technical roles and light on the commercial ones, and the gap rarely shows up until the variations start. Talesca recruits the full commercial and contracts sipe across renewables, energy and infrastructure – from contracts administrators and estimators to CBOP and EBOP package managers and Directors – Commercial, on permanent and contract terms.
If you’re scoping a renewables build and want a confidential conversation about resourcing the commercial layer before it becomes the bottleneck, get in touch with our team.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s the layered commercial function that runs the length of a project: bids and tendering, contract administration, procurement, cost and commercial control, package management (including CBOP and EBOP), and commercial leadership. Each layer hands off to the next. Together they decide what the project is contractually owed and exposed to – in short, whether the build protects its margin, not just whether it gets finished.
On larger wind and solar projects, owners often split the balance-of-plant scope into two packages. Civil Balance of Plant (CBOP) covers earthworks, foundations, roads, drainage and cable trenching. Electrical Balance of Plant (EBOP) covers medium-voltage cabling, substations, transformers, SCADA and grid-connection works. Splitting them can save cost but adds interface complexity, so package managers who govern the seams between the two scopes matter as much as the scopes themselves.
Because technical roles feel urgent and commercial ones feel like they can wait until a contract is signed or procurement begins. The catch is that the commercial decisions with the longest tail – risk allocation, payment mechanisms, variation procedures – are locked in earliest. Hiring the commercial spine late means the people who have to manage those obligations for years had no hand in shaping them.
No, and it’s worth separating them. Project controls covers scheduling, planning, cost reporting and document control – measuring the project against its baseline. The commercial spine covers contracts, procurement and package management – deciding what the project is contractually owed and exposed to. They’re complementary functions that are often confused, and a workforce plan needs both.
Earlier than most plans assume. Map the contracts, procurement and commercial leads alongside the technical org chart rather than after it, ideally before financial close, because the contracts they manage are negotiated at the front of the project. Experienced commercial professionals in energy aren’t sitting idle, so factor in real lead time to bring the right people across.
Sources and References
- Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) — New projects to deliver 7.8 GW of clean energy (CIS Tender 7 results): https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/new-projects-deliver-7-8-gw-clean-energy
- ConstructionFront — Balance of Plant (BoP): BOP Contract, Scope and EPC Procurement (CBOP/EBOP scope and interface management): https://constructionfront.com/balance-of-plant-bop-contract/
- WindFarmBoP — EBoP vs CBoP – where is the money? (civil vs electrical balance-of-plant scope): https://www.windfarmbop.com/ebop-vs-cbop-where-is-the-money/