Business Development Assistant

In a nutshell

You’re someone who enjoys organising projects, supporting busy teams, and keeping business development activity running smoothly from start to finish. You bring structure, curiosity and strong communication skills to your work, and you’re comfortable balancing a mix of tasks — from event planning and research to proposal support, CRM updates and relationship‑building.

If you like variety, collaborating with different people and being the reliable person others can count on, this role offers a brilliant opportunity to build a BD career within a friendly, energetic and supportive marketing & BD team.

• Coordinate and deliver client‑facing events, seminars and networking sessions across Poole, Salisbury and Southampton, including logistics, venues, catering, invitations and on‑the‑day support.
• Manage post‑event follow‑up to help generate leads and ensure a great experience for attendees and internal teams.
• Come up with ideas for corporate hospitality and engagement activities that strengthen client relationships.
• Carry out market research on companies and the local marketplace to support BD planning.
• Coordinate the business development pipeline, qualify leads and help identify cross‑selling opportunities.
• Assist in producing proposal documents, logging wins and losses, and gathering content from partners and managers.
• Schedule, organise and support BD meetings — tracking actions and helping momentum stay on track.
• Maintain and update CRM data for the Poole and Southampton markets, producing simple reports and dashboards to help teams track activity.
• Use CRM insights to spot opportunities for teams and identify useful contact‑building prospects.
• Support teams in strengthening relationships with key referrers.
• Monitor budgets and assist with general BD/marketing activity as required.

• A strong organiser who enjoys coordinating events and keeping multiple tasks on track.
• Confident communicator who finds it easy to build rapport and work well with different stakeholders.
• Proactive, positive and eager to learn — especially if you’re starting your career in BD or professional services.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong attention to detail and accuracy.
• Comfortable working independently, managing deadlines and juggling priorities.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint and Word essential).
• Full driving licence and access to your own transport (required for attending events and travelling between offices).

As the largest firm of independent chartered accountants and business advisers in South West England, PKF Francis Clark offers a breadth of opportunities to develop your career in the way that’s right for you.

Established in 1919, we’ve grown to a team of nearly 1,000 people, based across our offices in Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Poole, Salisbury, Southampton, Taunton, Torquay and Truro. This means we’re big enough to do challenging work for exciting clients, but small enough to maintain our friendly and supportive culture.

We work hard to ensure you can belong, be yourself and be brilliant as part of a forward‑thinking team. This includes a flexible approach to hybrid working. And our focus on wellbeing and learning and development has been recognised nationally.

For the past three years, PKF Francis Clark has been certified as a Great Place to Work and ranked among the UK’s Best Workplaces. In 2025, we climbed four places to 20 out of 100 large organisations on this prestigious list.

We’re also in the UK’s top 10 Best Workplaces for Women (6 out of 100 large organisations), as well as being ranked among the Best Workplaces for Wellbeing (35 out of 100), Best Workplaces for Development (24 out of 100) and Best Workplaces in Consulting and Professional Services.

All these lists are compiled by workplace culture experts Great Place to Work. Our rankings are a direct result of feedback from our people in a confidential, independent annual survey.

The success rates of our trainees mean we’re also ranked 33rd in The Sunday Times Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers 2025.

While we’re proudly independent, we collaborate…