What is a contract manager?

The role of a contract manager can vary between businesses, but the overarching objective remains the same: manage contracts efficiently without inviting risk.

But what does that mean in practice? And what does it take to be an exceptional contract manager? Find out in this guide.

What is a contract manager?

A contract manager is an individual in a company responsible for the management and administration of contracts, as well as the process by which they are created and agreed. 

They typically collaborate with other departments to ensure contracts progress quickly, are handled efficiently, and remain compliant.

What does a contract manager do?

A contract manager works to ensure that legal documents move smoothly and quickly from creation, through collaboration and negotiation, to signature.

Once the contract is signed, the contract manager is responsible for making sure contracts are stored securely and organized in a way that makes them easy for relevant stakeholders to query and access.

Contract managers may also be responsible for other pre- or post-signature concerns, like:

• Analytics: what are the key metrics telling you about your contract workflow? How many documents are being signed a month, which stakeholders tend to slow them down, and which parts of the document are most frequently negotiated?
• Integrations: forward-thinking businesses will often integrate their contracting workflow with other systems of record, like Salesforce or Workday. Contract managers will want those integrations to be working effectively and hooked up to their contract management software.
• Template review: contract managers will frequently review the automated templates that their colleagues use to generate contracts, to look for efficiencies and improvements that will decrease time-to-signature.

What is the difference between a contract manager and project manager?

The difference between contract managers and project managers is that contract managers focus on the optimisation and handling of the contract process–tracking deliverables, obligations, and milestones. Meanwhile, project managers oversee broader, cross-functional initiatives. 

There’s a lot of overlap between the skills required for the two roles, though. Both roles require attention to detail, strong organizational skills, and effective communication.

Why would you hire a contract manager?

Contracts aren’t just a legal concern. Teams across the business rely on contracts daily. Finance needs them to forecast accurately, and risk teams depend on a well-organized contract repository to evaluate exposure.

These challenges often lead companies to hire a contract specialist to manage contracts, especially post-signature. 

Many organizations still rely on inefficient manual processes—using tools like Word, email, shared drives, and eSignature to create, agree, and store contracts.

Add on the job of integrating them with additional systems of record like CRM, and it seems sensible for companies to employ someone full-time to handle these documents and workflows.

Are contract managers always lawyers?

It’s not necessary to be a lawyer or an attorney to be an effective contract manager.

In some sales-led companies, particularly in sectors like B2B SaaS, contract managers can find themselves in a revenue operations role, so that experience is more advantageous than a legal background.

It’s about making sure sales teams are empowered to create and close contracts quickly, with operational support to take friction out of the contract process.

While it’s important that legal inputs into and defines the key legal terms, the day-to-day management of contracts is much more of a sales-adjacent role, focused on process, than a role requiring knowledge of black-letter law.

Of course, for some companies, the best fit for the contract manager role is a member of the legal team, if there’s someone happy to specialize and spend all their time in legal documents and process. 

The honest answer is that it depends on the company in question, as well as the complexity and volume of the contracts typically being handled.

Typical contract manager responsibilities

To get a clearer, more accurate understanding of what a contract manager is expected to do and know, we reviewed live contract manager job descriptions to spot themes and trends. 

The following responsibilities were the most common:

• Developing and implementing comprehensive contract management strategies across several different departments
• Leading on contract negotiations to reduce contract value leakage, improve commercial outcomes, and mitigate risk by ensuring regulatory compliance.
• Routinely monitoring contract performance to ensure contractual obligations are fulfilled and key contract milestones are met  
• Building and distributing reports on key contract management metrics for senior management 
• Coaching individuals within the business to adopt and champion contract management best practices through training and awareness programs
• Consolidating and managing vendor agreements to improve procurement processes, identify opportunities to increase value from contracts, or opt out of autorenewals
• Drafting contract summaries that consolidate key terms, conditions, and alignment to business objectives 
• Updating commercial terms where appropriate, including in routine, standardized contracts like service orders, addendums, and MSAs
• Obtaining approval for non-standard terms in accordance with agreed approval matrices
• Developing, delivering, and maintaining effective commercial methods, processes, and operational procedures to ensure contracts are managed in line with internal and external compliance standards, including ISO and GDPR and other applicable laws

How to become a contract manager

There are various routes to take if you’re interested in becoming a contract manager. If you’ve studied law and gone down the paralegal or legal executive routes, you can use your legal background to demonstrate your interest and knowledge of contracts.

On the other hand, if you’re coming from a non-legal background, then a role in operations or procurement is probably the fastest route to working with contracts every day, particularly since these departments are well versed in supplier contracts - a big focus in most contract manager roles.

When it comes to finding the best contract manager jobs, you can browse the latest contract manager roles on familiar sites like Indeed (UK/US), Glassdoor or LinkedIn. We also regularly share great roles on our jobs board which was curated for in-house legal professionals. 

Contract manager salary

If you’re not yet a contract manager, you’ll probably want to understand what you can get paid for the role. Here are some salary insights from leading career and jobs boards in 2024/25. 

Contract manager salaries in the UK

According to Totaljobs, the average contract manager salary in the UK is £57,500 with the lower salary range averaging around £42,500, and the higher average sitting at £67,500 per year. Totaljobs also shows a large regional variation in salaries, which you can view here.

Data from Glassdoor shows a similar trend, with average base pay of £48,000 per year, but this increases to £52,670 on average if you’re based in the London area. Glassdoor also estimates the average bonus for contract managers to range from £3,000 to £6,000. 

Contract manager salaries in the US

Salary.com estimates that the average salary for a contract manager in the US sits at $138,920, with the highest pay going up to around $176,995.  

However, Indeed estimates the average salary for a contract manager to be considerably lower, at $99,702 per year. This is similar to benchmarks from Talent.com and Payscale where the average is estimated to be around $100,000. 

Contract manager salaries around Europe

To give you an idea of what contract manager salaries look like across Europe, check out these salary ranges pulled from sites like Glassdoor and Payscale:

What makes an exceptional contract manager?

“A contract manager always has one eye on commercial outcomes”

It’s important to mitigate risk in contractual terms, but contracts are there to create relationships and deliver on promises between partners - they’re a key growth lever for the company, so a contract manager should always be looking to ‘grease the wheels’ and make sure nothing blocks this growth.

James Sullivan, Global General Counsel at Bitstamp explains this eloquently:

“An operations mindset ensures that legal involvement is streamlined and efficient, right down to the minor details - requests are no longer brakes on the business, because legal is a useful, approachable resource that allows teams to self-serve”.

In practice, this means striving for continual improvement in the contract process, as well as adjusting terms and contract design to shorten contract cycles.

“The best contract managers know what to automate, and when”

Automation is another key step in creating a more efficient contract management process; by creating a self-serve contract workflow, contract managers can focus on outcomes and worry less about each individual document making it from A to B.

Ioana Badiu is now the Contract Manager at Samsung, but she kindly shared with us what this role looked like when she was at UiPath. 

Spoiler: she focused heavily on automating the routine admin tasks (like contracting) that become a distraction for in-house legal counsel:

“We look at everything that’s manual, repetitive, and can be automated. One of my main focus areas for the past few years has been to identify those mundane tasks and take them off legal counsel’s hands”.

Arguably the most important part of a contract manager’s role is for them to act as an enabler for the wider business. Exceptional contract managers are great at unblocking contracts and automating the work that consumes the most time, but distracts from higher-value, more strategic priorities. 

That’s why Juro is a popular partner for contract managers. 

Why contract managers choose Juro

Contract managers have the difficult job of achieving a careful balance between agility and risk-mitigation. Juro's contract management solution gives them the tools to do just that.

1. Streamlined contract workflows

Contract managers often face bottlenecks when relying on traditional tools like Word or email. Juro’s all-in-one platform simplifies contract creation, approval, and execution, reducing manual intervention. It helps contract managers focus on strategic goals rather than routine admin tasks.

We have turned hour-long meetings with attorneys into just a few minutes’ work in Juro - Kyle Piper, Contracts Manager, ANC

2. Enabling self-serve for teams

One of the main challenges for contract managers is dealing with high volumes of low-complexity contracts. Juro empowers other teams to self-serve on contracts within the guardrails set by legal, ensuring compliance while freeing up time for contract managers to work on more complex agreements.

"Allowing people to draft agreements themselves based on a series of simple questions saves lots of time" - Kyle Piper, Contracts Manager, ANC

3. Improving visibility and compliance

Post-signature, Juro’s dynamic contract repository centralizes all contracts, making it easier for contract managers to track obligations, milestones, and risks. Advanced search and data extraction features provide immediate insight into critical metrics, making reporting easier than ever.

If I need a list of contracts that we have with any particular team in the NFL, for example, I can create that filter super easily to share with our internal stakeholders - Kyle Piper, Contracts Manager, ANC

4. Accelerating contract cycles

Through automation and collaboration features, Juro shortens the contract lifecycle, allowing contract managers to close deals faster. Real-time negotiation and approval tools eliminate delays and reduce friction between stakeholders.

Making legal operations more efficient while maintaining compliance and delivering high-quality results for our customers - that’s where ANC is heading with Juro - Kyle Piper, Contracts Manager, ANC

Contract managers who partner with Juro gain a platform tailored to modern contracting needs—simplifying processes, improving compliance, and ultimately driving growth across the business.

To find out more about how Juro can support you in driving contract management efficiencies, fill in the form below to book a personalized demo.