What to Expect from Civil Engineering Tenders

Posted on 15th April 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

Civil engineering tenders and where to find them

Civil engineering tenders are released by a broad range of organisations. Predominantly, they can be expected in the public sector and local councils are often procuring civil engineering works and services.

Civil engineering tenders can cover a broad scope of works and services. Often, they’re split into two broad categories:

Minor Civils and building works

These are typically used for minor works that are small and uncomplex construction projects. This could cover both new and repair and renovation works that are below £500,000 in value. These civil engineering tenders could cover activities and works such as:

Footpath and cycleway improvements
Flood alleviation and land drainage improvements
Environmental improvements
Highway improvements
Hard landscaping
Construction of above and below ground structures
Drainage works.

Major and complex works

These typically involve large one-off projects with a value over £500,000. Such civil engineering tenders often cover works such as:

Public buildings
Bridges
Coastal defences
Infrastructures such as drainage and flood defences.

RIBA planning and outline

Civil engineering tenders may require you to provide a RIBA Plan of Work outline for a certain stage. For example, this may be required for civil engineering tenders for new housing. This could include but isn’t limited to:

A detailed design of the work
Technical approvals
The main contract bid compliance checking
Works compliance and design checking
Design risk assessment
Full technical design and specification
Obtaining technical approval
Provision Sums for meetings
Project brief table
Health and safety.

Framework agreements

Civil engineering tenders can often be found as part of a framework agreement. Framework agreements are multi-supplier agreements often used within the public sector. The length of each framework agreement can vary from a few months to multiple years. Some even offer the possibility of extension. Due to this, securing a place on a framework agreement can be a lucrative opportunity for your business.

Framework agreements are split into different lots. Each lot can either be a specific good, service, work or geographical location. They allow suppliers to apply to be part of a wider contract without needing to supply all areas. The number of suppliers for each lot varies and can be anything from four suppliers for one lot to ten. Suppliers need only apply for the specific lot[s] they specialise in.

Depending on the buyer, suppliers may be able to bid on any or all of the framework lots available. This will be stated within the tender documents and tender specification released by the buyer. If this is an option, a supplier must be able to demonstrate that they’re able to undertake all works. They must have the appropriate capacity and resources to undertake the works across all selected lots. Civil engineering tender lots are typically split into geographical location and project value.

Past experience

Civil engineering tenders will likely require you to provide previous contract examples of work you have completed. They should be similar in complexity and scope and style. You may be asked for up to three examples within the last five years. They are often referred to as case studies and can strengthen your bid. Make sure you keep them relevant and include any challenges you overcame.

The contract will be awarded to the MEAT

As civil engineering tenders are frequent within the public sector, you should aim to be the MEAT. The MEAT stands for the most economically advantageous tender. This means the buyer is looking for a tender that provides the most value for money. A buyer will look at a combination of factors both individually and combined. These can include, but aren’t limited to, the following:

Innovation
Accessibility
Ability to deliver on time and within budget
Technical ability
Quality
Environmental and sustainable factors.

Social value

Local authorities civil engineering tenders now have a mandatory minimum 10% weighting on social value. It’s an important aspect of any public sector contract. The promises you make in the section can be contractually binding, so it’s not something you should gloss over. Social value is the social, environmental and economic aspects you plan to address during the contract. This could include:

COVID-19 recovery
Reducing waste
Creating new jobs and promoting skills
Tackling climate change and reducing carbon emissions
Paying employee National Living Wage to tackle economic inequality
The equal opportunities policies you implement.

Company CVs

Construction contracts in the UK may require you to include detailed CVs of the team members proposed to work on the project. Contractors like to see that your employees are qualified, and you should demonstrate their suitability for the project at hand. Each CV should detail what the specific team member will be responsible for. You could include their:

Job title
Qualifications and accreditations
Experience.

You could include a professional and friendly-looking photo of each team member. This will allow buyers to put a face to a name and is a nice touch. CVs should be focused, as relevant and concise as possible while still being thorough.

Need assistance writing your next civil engineering tenders?

You may not always have the time or resources to write winning civil engineering tenders. If that’s the case, outsourcing it to bid writing specialists can help you secure your next bid.

Our sister company Hudson Succeed, are bid writing experts. They have over 60 years of bid writing experience and an 87% success rate.

They offer four bid writing support services that can help you win your next civil engineering tenders. Whether you’re completely new to tendering or need your bid response proofread before you submit – they can help.

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect civil engineering tender for your business, why not send it over to us? Our Bid Writers can take care of it all for you. They’ll let you know what they need from you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready programme is perfect for those who have never tendered before. A Bid Writer will work with you to make sure you have everything you need in place to tender successfully. The 4-week programme offers your business:

A 12-month subscription to Construction Tenders
Access to Global Bid Directors and Senior Bidding professionals
An organisation-wide Bid Library, including 3 case studies, 5 CV’s and 8 policies
Additional flexible benefit options.

Tender Improvement

If you’ve been tendering but aren’t seeing the results you want, our Tender Improvement package can help. The Bid Team will assess your previous responses and tender documents, working with you to improve for future submissions. This package includes a 12-month subscription to Construction Tenders and additional tendering development services.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your own tender response and need someone to double-check it for errors, Tender Mentor can help. Our Bid Team will proofread your work for any inconsistencies, grammar or spelling mistakes. They’ll also ensure that it’s in line with the specification before you submit.

Where can I source civil engineering tender opportunities?

Sourcing the right civil engineering tenders for your business can take hours out of your day. There are various portals and websites that require different login details and passwords. Keeping track of them all can turn into a full-time job! We have a time-saving tool that can optimise your tendering efforts allowing you time to focus on your business.

Construction Tenders is a portal that hosts all the live construction leads and tendering opportunities within the construction industry. Gone are the days of relying on inaccurate CPV codes! Our Opportunity Trackers source and upload exclusive, public and private sector opportunities from across the UK. You’re able to filter and search the results by keyword, budget, location and more.

Below are previous civil engineering tenders sourced on our portal:

Civil Engineering Enabling Works at Holborn, South Shields – to Include Extensive Maritime and Geotechnical Elements

South Tyneside Council- North East- Budget: Undisclosed

Civil Engineering Works Associated with Water Supply to Group Water Schemes Including Minor Environmental Works in County Donegal

Donegal County Council- Republic of Ireland- Budget: Undisclosed

HCD0118 SC Engineering Services – HCD 0118 Provision of Structural & Civil Engineering Services

Donegal County Council- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Highways & Civil Engineering Materials

Newcastle City Council- North East- budget: Undisclosed

Minor Civil Engineering work for Warwick District

Coventry Council- Solihull – Warwickshire- West Midlands- Budget: £4,000,000

A subscription to Construction Tenders offers your business:

Access to all unique, private and public sector opportunities across the Construction industry.
An on-hand Account Manager to answer any questions you may have about civil engineering tenders.
A daily email bulletin sent straight to your inbox when new construction tenders are uploaded that day.
Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our bid writing division.

The best way to venture into the tendering world is through booking a live demo of Construction Tenders.

We also source opportunities for services including;

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business grow.

Upgrade to Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can save you even more time, helping you identify tendering opportunities even when you’re busy. Our two time-saving tools can improve your competitor awareness and bidding success rate. Each package can help save you even more time when searching for civil engineering tenders.

The Ultimate Time Saver package includes:

An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option best suits a business that overlaps two industries such as Construction and Logistics for example.
A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Buyer portal management including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid.
Weekly phone calls with your on-hand Account Manager to discuss viable civil engineering tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package includes:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

Steel Work Tenders: 6 Tips for Success

Posted on 15th March 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

Steel Work Tenders in the Public Sector

Steel work tenders can help your steel company secure a pipeline of construction contracts. There are buyers in both the public and private sectors. Within the public sector, local councils are often commissioning steel work tenders and services. Such services could range from a multitude of buildings including residential, educational and commercial.

Steel work tenders can be released by buyers to procure:

Primary Framing
Secondary Framing
Structural steel work
Maintenance painting of steel work
Steel work for major projects.

6 tips to succeed when writing your responses for steel work tenders

Plan

You should always plan your response for steel work tenders. Adequate planning can help you avoid any silly errors such as misjudging deadlines, formats and word counts.

Remember to note down all the important dates listed in the tender specification, these are likely to include:

Submission deadline date and time
Clarification questions deadline
Site visit deadline.

Attend on-site visits

Site visits can be a great opportunity to strengthen your written responses. It’s strongly advised that you undertake a site visit where possible. Attending one may help you gain an insight into the buyer and help you achieve more accurate pricing.

They also allow prospective suppliers to see the environment they will be working in. This allows you to see things with your own eyes. You might just pick up on something that you otherwise wouldn’t be aware of.

Demonstrate value for money

Steel work tenders in the public sector will award responses that produce the best value for money. Public sector contracts will be looking to award the Most Economically Advantageous Tender, known as the MEAT. The MEAT means the buyer is looking at more than just price. It is important to note that the cheapest bid does not always win.

You should price your services sensibly. Under-pricing your services won’t give you an edge over your competitors in this case. In the most commonly used tendering procedures, negotiating isn’t permitted further down the line. Some steel work tenders will put a larger weighting on price than quality, and visa versa. However, to ensure value for money, you should consider the following, for example:

Quality costs and benefits of products
Any additional economic benefit that may result from your project
Energy and water management
Full costs associated with transport and delivery
Insurance
Maintenance
After sale support
Waste disposal and reduction of waste
Sustainability
Supply chain management
Ability to deliver on time
The costs and benefits to society as a whole.

Don’t gloss over social value

It’s essential for any successful bid, that your business considers the social economic and environmental impacts of fulfilling the contract. Social value now has a mandatory minimum weighting of 10% within government contracts.

It is not something that should be glossed over or treated as an afterthought. The government takes this part seriously and wants to see you making commitments that you can keep. There are qualifications that are relevant for this, such as ISO 14001.

The social value model has the aim of:

Encouraging economic growth.
Tackling economic and diversity inequality.
Creating new jobs.
Tackling climate change.

Within your steel work tenders response, you should note how your business is:

Supporting COVID-19 recovery.
Providing skills and development training, supporting the local community and long term unemployed.
Sustainably sourcing.
Considering environmental issues and helping to fight climate change.
Upholding equal opportunity and diversity policies.

A high-quality written response

The quality of your written response for steel work tenders is always going to matter. Buyers expect a strong written response, even if there is a larger weighting on price. Your written response is what can help separate you from your competitors.

Your written response is should be persuasive to the buyer. Why should they pick your business? Why are you the best business for the job? What do you offer that your competitors don’t? Sell yourself and your company to the buyer and give them a reason to pick you.

Remember to keep your response clear and concise, writing as close to the word count as possible. Avoid rambling on with overly technical jargon.

Provide evidence

Make sure that you have relevant past experiences that you can evidence in your response.

You will likely be required to provide up to three case studies of previous contracts you have carried out. They should be similar in calibre, scope, scale and tailored to demonstrate your abilities. They should be contracts that you have completed within the last five years.

Need help writing your next steel work tenders?

Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, boasts an 87% bid success rate. They have over 60 years of collective experience and are well versed in writing construction industry tender responses. They offer four levels of bid writing support.

Tender Ready

The Tender Ready 4-week programme is designed for businesses who are completely new to tendering. Our Bid Writers will work with you to ensure you have everything you need to produce a winning bid.

Tender Improvement

Our Tender Improvement package can help if you aren’t seeing success from your current tendering efforts. Our Bid Team will assess your previous steel work tender responses and tender documents. They’ll then give you guidance and feedback, working with you to improve for future submissions.

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect steel work tenders for your business, why not send it over to our team? They’ll provide you with a full Tender Writing breakdown, letting you know what they need from you. Our Bid Writers will take care of everything for you – they’ll even submit it on your behalf.

Tender Mentor

Our Tender Mentor service can make sure your response is free of grammar and spelling mistakes before you submit. One of our Bid Writers will proofread your response, checking it’s in line with the specification.

How can I find the right steel work tenders for my business?

Use a sector specific portal

Finding the right steel work tenders for your business is half the battle. Often tender websites host tenders across multiple sectors and industries which are updated daily. It can take a large amount of time out of your day trying to find suitable tenders. Relying on CPV codes can result in missed opportunities. This is because they are often mislabelled, meaning you could be missing out on the right tenders for your company.

You should use a sector-specific portal to save you time when searching for your next steel work tenders. One that uses keyword tracking and provides good customer service is a plus. Construction Tenders focuses on opportunities in construction. Our Opportunity Trackers manually source contracts for clients who can then filter the results by keyword, location, budget and more.

Below are previous steel work tenders sourced on our portal:

Civil Ground Works & Site Preparation, Including Structural Steel Works and Relocation of Site Offices

Mayo County Council- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Gable Grade11* Listed Prep & Repainting High Level Steel Work

Manchester City Council- North West- Budget: Undisclosed

Mezzanine Steel Works for The Zepher Building Harwell Science & Innovation Campus

Satellite Applications Catapult Limited- South East- Budget: £50,000

Whiffens Avenue, Chatham – Primary Steel Works – Secured Project

Medway Council- South East- Budget: Undisclosed

The best way to venture into the tendering world is through booking a live demo of Construction Tenders. We source opportunities for services including;

A 12-month subscription to Construction Tenders offers your business:

A team of Opportunity Trackers sourcing steel work tenders from thousands of websites.
Access to unique, private and public construction bids from across the UK.
An on-hand Account Manager to answer any questions or queries you may have about steel work tenders.
The ability to filter search results by keyword, budget, location and more.
A daily email bulletin notifying you of all relevant construction leads uploaded that day.
Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our Bid Writing division.
20-minutes of free consultancy each month with our Bid Experts.

Want to save even more time?

Discover Elite can help optimise your tendering opportunities – even when you’re busy! Our two upgraded packages can improve your competitor awareness and bidding success rate. Each package can help save you even more time when searching for steel work tenders.

The Ultimate Time Saver package includes:

An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option best suits a business that overlaps two industries such as Construction and Logistics.
A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Buyer portal management including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid
Weekly phone calls with your on-hand Account Manager to discuss viable tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package offers your business:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

Cable Laying Tenders: The Fundamentals

Posted on 3rd March 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

How to succeed with cable laying tenders

Cable laying tenders can seem daunting if you have never completed one before. Those who have tendered for construction contracts in the UK before know what a minefield it can be. Cable laying tenders are often released by businesses that are looking for the supply, replacement, and installation of cables. They could be required for residential properties, office buildings or hospitals to name a few.

COVID-19 has led to a steep increase in businesses across the board turning to tendering to secure a pipeline of work. While social distancing is still in play, tendering allows you to grow your business without the need for face-to-face meetings.

There are multiple benefits for choosing tendering as a route for your business to go down. Bidding for cable laying tenders in the public sector, there can offer multiple advantages. For example, if successful, you are guaranteed pay due to the regulations public sector organisations are bound by. The Prompt Payment Code must be adhered to which can give businesses a steady form of income. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that the private sector is not bound by these rules.

Open tendering procedure

More often than not, cable laying tenders will be an open tendering procedure. An open tendering procedure is often used within the public sector. It’s a process that’s commonly used as it is fairly straightforward.

ITT

Typically, a buyer will release an invitation to tender, known as an ITT. In an open tendering procedure, when an ITT is released, any prospective suppler can respond. Each supplier should aim to convey and persuade the buyer that they are the best business for the job.

MEAT

Once all bids have been submitted, the buyer reviews all the responses and will make their decision. The tender will then be awarded to the most economically advantageous tender, known as the MEAT. A buyer will have evaluated both the price and quality of each of the cable laying tenders. For MEAT, the buyer is looking at more than just price. It’s important to note the cheapest bid does not always win. A buyer assesses multiple aspects of a bid, this could include the following:

Environmental factors
Accessibility
Quality management
Ability to deliver on time
Innovation
Technical Ability
Experience.

Experience

Demonstrating that you have relevant experience is important for all cable laying tenders. Buyers will want to know that you are experienced and will be able to deliver the contract. Most contacts will require you to include past case studies of completed works of similar scope. If you have completed works in a similar geographical location, that’s a plus.

Often, three previous case studies within the last five years are required. You want to make sure that when providing your examples, that you keep them relevant to the specification. Case studies should demonstrate your business’ capabilities. Some tenders may ask for testimonials and the contact information of past clients.

The word count will suggest the amount of detail you should go into. It may be worth including how you overcame any unexpected logistical challenges, if any. This will exhibit your problem-solving skills and flexibility that are constantly needed within the construction industry.

Site Visits

The construction industry often offers the chance for prospective suppliers to complete a site visit. This should be detailed within the specification or tender documentation. If this is the case, it’s strongly encouraged that you undertake a site visit where possible.

Site visits allow prospective buyers to actually see the environment that they will be working in, if successful. They are a great opportunity to strengthen your cable laying tenders. They may be able to help you achieve more accurate pricing, better quality responses and gain insight into the buyer. This is a chance to gather more information that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

Buyers care about the quality of your writing

Buyers care about the quality of your written response. They have high expectations that will be met by suppliers that have a strong written response. Even if the quality response is weighted less than the price, it’s still important to score well. That is what could distinguish you from your competitors.

Your response should be clear and concise showing attention to detail. However, it should not leave room for the buyer to make assumptions, nor should it ramble on with technical jargon. You want to respond to questions as close to the word or page counts as possible. The buyer included them for a reason. If they give 500 words for a response, a couple of sentences simply will not suffice.

If writing isn’t your strong suit – we can help.

Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, boasts over 60 years of collective bid writing experience. They have an 87% success rate and are well versed in writing construction bids. Whether you’ve never tendered before or aren’t seeing success from your current efforts, they offer four levels of support.

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect cable laying tenders for your business, why not send it over to our team? We know how busy you can be while running a business. You don’t always have the time or resources to write a winning bid in-house. Our Bid Team will provide a full Tender Writing breakdown and will even submit it on your behalf.

Tender Ready

Tender Ready offers a 4-week programme that’s perfectly designed for businesses who are completely new to tendering. Hudson Succeed’s Bid Writers work with you to ensure you have everything in place to tender successfully. This includes creating a bid library and a 12-month subscription to Construction Tenders.

Tender Improvement

The Tender Improvement package can help if you aren’t seeing success from your current responses for cable laying tenders. Our Bid Writers will look over your past submissions and supporting documents. They’ll then give you feedback and guidance on how to improve on future submissions.

Tender Mentor

Tender Mentor can double-check your bid response for errors before you submit. Our Bid Writers will proofread, checking for any grammatical or spelling mistakes and ensure it’s in line with the specification.

Where can I find cable laying tenders?

Now you know how to get the most out of your cable laying tenders. Now, you may be wondering where to find them.

You likely don’t have the spare time to trawl the internet looking for the right opportunity for your business. Luckily for you, our Construction Tenders portal can help. We source construction leads from thousands of sources daily. Our Opportunity Trackers manually upload them meaning no more missed opportunities due to unreliable CPV codes.

Searches can be filtered by budget, location, keyword and more – streamlining the process. A subscription to Construction Tenders includes a dedicated Account Manager. They can answer any questions or queries you may have about cable laying tenders or the bidding process in general. You’ll even get a daily email bulletin sent straight to your inbox when new tenders are uploaded.

Below are past cable laying tenders we’ve sourced on our portal:

Excavation, Cable Laying and Reinstatement

Northern Ireland Electricity Networks- Northern Ireland- Budget: £36,500,000

Supply and Install New Cables at Solihull Hospital

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust- West Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

Data Cabling and Extra Low Voltage Control Cabling

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust- East Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

Pressurise HV Cables

South Tees Site Company- North East- Budget: £45,000

Replacement of Electrical Cabling at the NORA Mainland Tankfarm, Tarbert, Co. Kerry

National Oil Reserves Agency- Ireland- Budget: Undisclosed

Cable Pulling Services

Hastoe HA- London- Budget: Undisclosed

Supply of Inline Cable Joint

Iarnród Eireann-Irish Rail- Ireland- Budget: Undisclosed

The best way to venture into the tendering world is through booking a live demo of Construction Tenders. We source opportunities for services including;

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business grow.

Upgrade to Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can help optimise your tendering opportunities even when you’re busy. Our two packages can save you even more time when searching for cable laying tenders. The Ultimate Time Saver and Become and Pre-Bid Master packages can improve your bidding success rate and competitor awareness.

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers:

A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option best suits a business that overlaps two industries such as Construction and Logistics.
Weekly phone calls with your dedicated Account Manager to discuss viable tendering opportunities.
Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Buyer portal management including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package offers your business:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

The Fundamentals of Building Material Supply Tenders

Posted on 24th February 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

Building material supply tenders and the impact of Brexit and COVID-19

Building material supply tenders are essential for any construction project be it in either the public or private sectors.

Building material supply tenders may be looking to procure a range of materials such as:

Heavy materials
Bricks, block, stone, cement
Electrical products
Flooring
Hire and purchase of plant, tools and equipment
Plumbing and heating
Building and construction tools and equipment.

Brexit and COVID-19 have had quite an impact on the construction industry, particularly regarding building material supplies. There has been a shortage of supplies of roof tiles and timber. This is due to high demand caused by a boom in the housing market and delays at some British ports. Timber prices have risen by 20% as a consequence and there have been escalated prices for shipping disrupting supply chains.

PAS91

Before you submit your building material supply tenders, you’ll often need to complete a PAS91. A PAS91 is a standardised form of pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) frequently used within construction. You’ll need to pass this in order to progress to the next stage of receiving an invitation to tender (ITT).

A PAS91 is essentially a box ticking exercise to ensure you meet the minimum criteria for the contract. You’ll need to answer questions on things such as:

Company information
Your economic and financial standing
Quality Assurance
Health & Safety
Environmental considerations
Equal opportunities & Diversity

If you’re an SME, the PAS91 is designed with you in mind, aiming to simplify and streamline the process. This is to encourage more SMEs to tender for work in the hope of achieving the government’s pledge towards SMEs. They aim to spend £1 in £3 with SMEs, meaning they’re actively looking to award contracts to smaller businesses.

Framework agreements

Framework agreements are a common form of procurement for building material supply tenders. They are used to establish a multi-supplier agreement for goods or services. Framework agreements often run for multiple years at a time and can be lucrative opportunities for your business.

Buyers often split framework agreements into ‘Lots’. These Lots means a supplier doesn’t have to deliver the whole contract. They need only apply to the area in which they specialise. For example, building material supply tenders framework agreement could have Lots for the following:

Lot 1 – Electrical Products
Lot 2 – Heavy Materials
Lot 3 – Timber and Joinery
Lot 4 – Small Tool Hire
Lot 5 – Paint and Solvents

Lots could also cover regional location if the project is to be carried out in multiple locations. For example:

Lot 1 – Birmingham
Lot 2 – Newcastle
Lot 3 – Cardiff

You can often tender for one or multiple Lots, depending on the services your organisation offers. You also need to consider if you have the resources in order to carry out multiple services and locations.

Sustainability

Building material supply tenders within the public sector will often have a section on sustainability. You may have to detail how your business will manage the following:

Environmental Management

An accredited ISO 14001 or equivalent will be needed here. You’ll need to state what your Environment Management System is. You’ll need to explain how it controls and mitigates the environmental impact of operations.

Government Buying Standards

When applying for a government framework agreement within construction, you’ll need to demonstrate how you comply with government standards. You will need to supply evidence of compliance if requested. Your business should provide products that meet Government Buying Standards best practice specifications wherever possible.

The Government Buying Standards are updated every now and again. It’s important that you keep up to date with any changes to ensure you meet the requirements. It’s worth noting that all timber or timber related products must comply with the United Kingdom Government Timber Procurement Policy. They must be purchased from legal and sustainable sources and demonstrate this by fall chain of custody evidence.

Sustainable Product Offering

When possible, businesses should look to use materials and products that are from recycled and renewable sources. Government building material supply tenders will be looking for suppliers who are pursuing general sustainability and good practice.

Generally speaking, a business should seek to provide sustainable product alternatives within their Base Offering where possible. Buyers will appreciate when a business indicates there’s alternative goods that’ll provide greater sustainable benefits over the goods lifetime.

Waste

You must comply against all relevant waste legislations, keeping an eye on any updates, amendments or changes. If anything does change throughout the life of the contract, you must update your policies. Most building material supply tenders will require the insurance that waste is taken to authorised sites for treatment or disposal. Your business will then be expected to undertake regular checks to ensure that it’s disposed of properly.

Giving back to the local community

The sustainability sector within your tender should focus on social values. As with all public sector tenders, it’s important to demonstrate how you will be giving back to the community. You must consider the social, economic and environmental aspects while fulfilling the contract.

Depending on the buyer, you may be asked how your business is working to deliver rehabilitation work, for example. The government wants to see more prisoners working as part of the rehabilitation of offenders. It’s worth considering how your business would provide the opportunity to learn new skills and prepare for employment on release.

Supply chain

Even if you are an SME yourself, the public sector likes to see the inclusion of other SMEs where possible. Your construction bids may need to evidence the use or increase the use of any SMEs within your supply chain. This could be measured through Management Information or when detailing any sub-contractors in your building material supply tender response.

How we can help you win building material supply tenders

Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, are experts in bid writing. They have 60 years bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. If you’re not seeing success from your tendering efforts or are completely new to the process – we can help!

We offer four bid writing services that can help you with your next construction contract.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your own building material supply tenders and want someone to double-check for errors, Tender Mentor can help. One of our Bid Writers will proofread your response and point out any grammar mistakes. This allows you to submit an error-free tender response.

Tender Improvement

Our Tender Improvement package is for those who are already tendering but aren’t seeing the desired results. During the course of the programme, our Bid Writers will go over your supporting documents and previous submissions. They’ll provide you with feedback and work with you to create improved content. This will help improve your chances of winning your next tender.

Tender Ready

Tender Ready is a programme designed for those who are completely new to tendering and procurement. This programme works with you to ensure you’re on the right track to tender successfully.

Tender Writing

Have you found a building material supply tender you want to go for, but don’t know where to start? Why not send it over to us and our Bid Writers will write the response for you. They’ll let you know what they need from you and give you a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf!

You now know what to expect from building material supply tenders and know how to write one. You may be wondering where exactly you can find them?

Our Construction Tenders portal can help

Construction Tenders is an opportunity tracking platform where we source all construction leads from across the UK. Our Opportunity Trackers source live tenders from thousands of sites, saving you countless hours.

A subscription with Construction Tenders offers you:

Access to all unique, public and private sector opportunities in the UK.
No reliance on CPV codes, allowing you access to 100% of building material supply tenders.
The ability to filter results by keyword, budget, location and more.
A dedicated on-hand Account Manager to answer any questions or queries you may have about the tendering process.
Discounted bid writing support from Hudson Succeed.
20-minutes free consultancy every month with our bid experts.

Here are just a few examples of building material supply tenders we source:

All Wales Framework: Managed Service for the provision of Building Materials and associated products

Adra (Tai) Cyf – Wales- Budget: £500,000,000

23-09-2020

BTS Building Materials Contingency Supply requirement 2

Luton Council- Eastern- Budget: £560,000

13-11-2020

Building Materials

NEPO- North East- Budget: Undisclosed

06-01-2020

ITT for the Supply of Building Materials

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing- North West- Budget: Undisclosed

05-02-2021

Newport City Homes Building Materials Supply

Newport City Homes Limited- Wales- Budget: Undisclosed

14-12-2020

Procurement Hub Building Materials Framework

Places for People Group Limited- North West- Budget: £200,000,000

03-08-2020

Supply and Delivery of Building Materials and Aggregates

UK Power Networks Ltd- South East- Budget: Undisclosed

25-03-2020

Book a Demo with Construction Tenders

The best way to venture into the tendering world is through booking a live demo of Construction Tenders.

At Construction Tenders, we source construction leads and opportunities for;

Get in touch to find out how we can help your business grow.

A Guide to Government Flooring Contracts

Posted on 22nd February 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

Everything you need to write tenders for government flooring contracts

Government flooring contracts often involve the provision, supply and installation of flooring in the public sector. They could also cover the maintenance, refurbishment and renewal of flooring within government owned facilities. These could range from council houses to community centres and village halls to sports centres.

Government flooring contracts could cover the following subsections:

Resilient sheet
Resilient tile
Carpet tiles
Laminates
Ceramic
Vinyl
Soft flooring
Resin flooring
Hardwood flooring

Government flooring contracts could be a great opportunity to grow your business. There are often framework agreements that could secure your business a pipeline of work. If you’ve never applied for government flooring contracts, this guide will help give you a rough idea of what’s required.

Framework agreements

Framework agreements are commonly used for government procurement. A framework agreement is simply a contract agreement between multiple organisations to supply goods or services, sometimes in multiple locations.

Some frameworks can run for years at a time with the possibility of an extension. They can be lucrative opportunities for your business if you can secure a place. They can result in guaranteed pay and secure a pipeline of work, allowing you build up experience. This can place you in good stead for future contacts.

Framework agreements can use ‘Lots’. These allow businesses to work alongside other service providers in the contract. If a buyer is looking to procure multiple services, they may break it up into Lots. This means as a business you don’t have to be able to fulfil all the works. You need only apply to the lot that’s suitable for the goods, works or services your business specialises in.

An example of lots that could be available on government flooring contract framework agreements:

Lot 1 – Wood Flooring Supply and Fit

Lot 2 – Carpet Tiles Supply Only

Lot 3 – Resin Flooring Supply and Fit

Lot 4 – Entrance Matting Supply and Fit

Lot 5 – Contract and Domestic Grade Carpet Supply Only

If your business specialises in the supply and fitting of resin flooring, you’d apply for Lot 3. Some framework agreements allow businesses to apply for multiple lots. If successful, depending on the contract you could be awarded multiple Lots that you applied for. Although typically it’s never more than three at a time.

You must ask yourself before you apply to multiple lots if you have the capability to carry out the work if successful. There’s no point applying if you’re unable to provide the scope.

Economic and Financial Standing

A buyer will assess your economic and financial standing during the pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) stage. It’s one of two ways the contractor assesses your business’ suitability for the contract. The other is your professional capability. Your business’ economic and financial standing is typically comprised of three things:

Annual turnover – buyers assess this via your latest financial accounts.
Financial ratios – This is usually found in your full financial accounts and can include the ratio of your assets to liabilities.
Insurance – you want to ensure you’re aligned with the set requirements for insurance.

The minimum financial threshold for the contract is often stated within the specification. You must seriously ask yourself if your business meets this criterion. If it isn’t outlined, you are able to work this out yourself. It is unadvised to bid for projects that have a budget of more than half your annual turnover. For example, if your annual turnover is £150k, it’s not advised to bid for contacts that are more than £75k.

Case Studies

Government flooring contracts will often require you to include 2 – 3 case studies of contracts your company has fulfilled. You will likely be asked to provide details of the client, including work that’s similar in scope to the contract at hand. The examples should have been carried out within the last five years. It’s important to keep them relevant. Include examples of work within a similar geographical location is possible.

Backing these up with evidence and testimonials are two ways to impress the buyer. Depending on the required word count, you could also include how you overcame unexpected challenges. This enables you to demonstrate your problem-solving skills to the buyer and that you are flexible. Including the steps you took to avoid this could score you highly.

Timetable

A timetable is often required when writing your tender response. You may want to consider including the following within your timetable for government flooring contracts:

Preparation
General organisation of the site
Delivery of supplies
Detailed list of tasks
The duration
The various bodies and subcontractors if required
The means of identifying working personnel on site
Any minimum time constraints.

Qualifications

As with any government tender, the buyer will want to know that your business is qualified to do the job. They may ask for certain qualifications and accreditations that are relevant to the contract. Building and construction sites can be hazardous environments and accidents happen. The buyers want to be assured that your business is in keeping with best practice.

Some examples that could be relevant for government flooring contracts are:

CHAS
SafeContractor
CFA (Contract Flooring Association)
ISO 9001; 14001; 18001
RIDDOR
IOSH
Constructionline

MEAT

When tendering in the public sector, the construction contract is awarded to the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT). You should avoid undercutting yourself when pricing your services. The cheapest bid does not win. The MEAT allows the buyer to award the contract based on aspects other than price.

The buyer may take into account:

Environmental impact
Efficiency of the methodology
Quality of services
Quality of the proposed supplies
Accessibility
Customer service
The ability to deliver on time.

Social Value

It’s important to note that there is a compulsory 10% weighting on social value for government contracts. One some contracts, it can hold a weight of up to 30%, so it’s not something to be overlooked. This will focus on the wider, positive impact your business will provide when delivering the contract. Organisations will be assessed on the economic, environmental and social aspects.

Public sector buyers wants you to demonstrate that your business is committed to a sustainable future. You may get extra points for aligning them with their own social values, so there’s no harm doing some research. Although bear in mind that they want to see you making pledges that you can actually keep.

Some examples of social value policies you could include in your government flooring contracts are:

How your business supports COVID-19 recovery.
How you’re creating new skills or jobs to help tackle economic equality.
The equal opportunity policies you implement.
The environmental considerations your organisation takes to fight climate change and reduce waste.

How we can help win your next government flooring contracts

Here at Hudson, we are tender writing experts. Our Bid Writers at our sister company, Hudson Succeed, have 50 years bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. We offer four tender writing packages to help you with your construction bids. Whether you’re completely new to tendering or aren’t seeing any success in your own tendering efforts – we can help!

We have created four bid writing services that can help you see success with your next tender.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written previous government flooring contracts, but aren’t seeing any success, Tender Mentor can help. Our Bid Writers will assess and proofread your response in line with the spec. They’ll notify you of any errors or inconsistencies you may have before you submit.

Tender Writing

Have you found a government flooring contract but don’t know where to start? You can send the specification over to our Bid Writers and they’ll take care of it all for you. They’ll write the response and even submit it on your behalf! They’ll also provide a full Tender Writing breakdown. This allows you time to focus on the more important things.

Tender Improvement

Have you been tendering for government flooring contracts, but aren’t seeing any success? Our Tender Improvement package can help. During the course of the programme, our Bid Writers will assess your previous responses and supporting documents. They’ll provide you with guidance and improve literature where necessary.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready programme is designed for businesses who have never tendered for work before. This programme works with you, ensuring you have everything in place to tender successfully. You’ll have access to an expert Bid Consultant who can help your business grow.

Our Tender Ready and Tender Improvement packages include a 12-month subscription to our Construction Tenders portal.

Where can I find government flooring contracts?

You may be wondering where you can find government flooring contracts for your business. You likely don’t have time to trawl through hundreds of sites every day. Luckily for you, we have a solution.

Construction Tenders is an opportunity tracking platform that hosts hundreds of live construction leads from across the UK. We don’t rely on inaccurate CPV codes, our Opportunity Trackers manually upload opportunities to our portal. You’re then able to filter the results by keyword, budget, location and more.

A subscription with Construction Tenders includes:

Discounted bid support with Hudson Succeed.
Telephone support with Hudson Helpline.
Access to all private and public sector opportunities in the UK.
Daily email bulletins with government contracts uploaded that day.
A dedicated account manager on hand to answer any of your tendering questions.
And much more!

Here are just a few examples of government flooring contracts we sourced recently:

Aldersley Leisure Village Sports Hall Flooring

Wolverhampton City Council- West Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

22-01-2021

Flooring Contractor

North Star Housing Group LTD- North East- Budget: £45,000

25-01-2021

Hall Flooring

Marks Tey Parish Council- Eastern- Budget: £4,000

15-01-2021

MTC for Soft Flooring

Belfast City Council- Northern Ireland- Budget: Undisclosed

29-01-2021

Pencoedtre High School – Soft Flooring Package

Bouygues UK- Wales- Budget: Undisclosed

29-01-2021

Provision of Replacement Flooring to Bushfields’ Sports Centre

Peterborough City Council- Eastern- Budget: Undisclosed

05-02-2021

Book a demo with Construction Tenders

At Construction Tenders, we source opportunities for;

Book a free live demo to find out how we can help your business grow.

Considerations for Housing Development Agency Tenders

Posted on 1st February 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

The top 3 things to consider before bidding for housing development agency tenders

Housing development agency tenders are the most common way for buyers to discover suppliers who can undertake a housing project. But what exactly is a housing development agency tender?

The basics

In short, a tender is a notice that a buyer would like to procure goods, services, or works. These buyers often don’t have the skills or capacity to deliver the requirements themselves. In order to obtain these goods, services, or works, the buyer offers third-party suppliers a contract.

Due to the nature of tendering, buyers must select suppliers fairly, openly, and transparently. This is done in the form of a bidding process where suppliers will submit their individual bids. These bid responses will outline the specific advantages of using their business as a supplier. From here, the buyer can then begin to evaluate the responses. In most cases, the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) will win.

What is there to consider when bidding for a housing development agency tender?

Knowing the basics of tendering is the first hurdle to seeing success. The next is knowing which housing development agency tenders are suitable for your business. It can be quite tempting to jump in and want to go for all available tenders. However, if you follow our Hudson Insight Series, you will know tendering can be a time-consuming process. Before beginning the bidding process, you will need to have an idea of the tender’s suitability for your business. Make sure you have a process in place for qualifying opportunities. This can help you to avoid wasting time and effort and give you a greater chance of success. We know there is a lot to consider when tendering for work. So, here is a breakdown of the top 3 things to consider before bidding for a housing development agency tender.

Budgets

A vital part of tendering is pricing. Although pricing is typically weighted less than quality on construction tenders, pricing that is too high may lose important marks. Make sure you look at the pricing guidance if this is available. This guidance will be the key to understanding if the opportunity will be suitable for your business. Is there enough money in this? Will you make a profit? Is it financially worth bidding for?

Buyers will often require that potential suppliers meet their financial threshold. This is often referred to as your economic financial standing. A general rule of thumb is to aim for opportunities that are half your turnover or lower.

If no budget is established with the buyer, then assess workloads as per the specification. This will provide an approximation as to how much is to be delivered (cost-wise). Ideally, you want to aim for the lowest price, that still makes a profit.

Evaluation Scope

The most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) is the most common way for buyers to assess their potential suppliers. Each section of the response will be weighted in the form of a percentage of the overall tender score. The most common sections which are required from the buyer are quality and pricing.

Pricing describes the cost of the contract. As we have explained, you will submit your best price for the project. This will then be weighed against your competitor’s pricing.

Quality indicates your capabilities to deliver the contract.

Here the buyer can ask:

Pass/fail questions which cover the most essential requirements. If these questions are failed, you will likely be excluded from the next stage.
Your experience in the form of case studies.
How you plan to deliver the contract.
Your technical experience.
Your staff’s capabilities and CV’s.

Once you have submitted your tender it will be scored against the buyers weighting with the highest score winning.

An example

A buyer publishes an ITT. In your response, they will weight pricing as 30% of the overall tender score. Quality is weighted at 70%. This information tells you that in your response you should focus on your quality and technical expertise. The lower value of pricing says you can afford to be more competitive, however, you must have the quality to back this up.

Scope of work

Another important factor when identifying housing development agency tenders is the delivery of your services. The scope of work gives you an idea of what is expected of you. When looking through this, you will need to consider:

The location- Are you close enough to this site to deliver the contract effectively? Will you need staff based in multiple locations? Will the buyer accept remote working where possible?
Your pipeline- Do you have any work lined up which will affect your delivery of this contract? Are there any possible extensions with this contract? If the work will not commence until a later date, will you have enough work in the meantime?
Staffing- Do you have enough available staff to deliver this contract? Do your employees have the necessary experience?

Having this checklist to hand can help you effectively identify opportunities to suit your business.

Is there still a need for housing development agency tenders?

In the UK’s current climate, it can be easy to assume tendering opportunities across all sectors will be limited. Between the pandemic and its aftereffects, Brexit, and recessions, is the economy able to justify new housing development agency tenders?

The good news is, in spite of everything that’s going on, the construction industry has been consistently releasing tenders.

An update from the National Housing Federation has revealed:

Ahead of publishing its consultation response in the spring, the government has advised that any policy changes and reforms arising from the Planning for the Future proposals will take time to implement, and that planners should not delay their delivery of local plans.

MHCLG has advised that it will publish its response to the Planning for the Future White Paper consultation in the spring, setting out its decisions on the proposed way forward including preparing for potential legislation in the autumn. The response will focus on developing the next level of policy detail, after having considered the feedback provided. Read our response to the consultation.

The reform set out in the white paper will take a few years to implement, and the government is therefore advising planning authorities not to delay their preparation regarding local plans. Planners are encouraged to progress the approval of development management decisions, including S106 agreements and the delivery of affordable housing through this means.

Where can I find these tenders?

We can see there is still a need for housing development agency tenders. The next question is where can you find these tenders?

Construction Tenders is an opportunity tracking portal designed to be a time-saving tool for your business. We source from thousands of sites every week, making sure you have access to 100% of housing development agency tenders.

A subscription to Construction Tenders offers you:

A team of Opportunity Trackers sourcing public and private security bids from 1000s of sites.
A dedicated Account Manager on-hand to answer technical or tendering queries you may have.
No reliance on CPV codes or algorithms. Our team manually upload each tender, making sure that you have access to all public and private security bids.
The ability to filter bid opportunities by sector, keyword, budget, and location.
Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our bid writing division.
20-minutes of free live bid consultancy every month with our bid experts.

Here are some recent examples of housing development agency tenders we have sourced:

Proposed Housing Development at Convent Road, Doneraile, Co. Cork

Cork County Council- Republic of Ireland- Budget: Undisclosed

27-10-2020

Construction of Five Flats and associated Works on Oakfield Road, Stapleford

Broxtowe Borough Council- East Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

26-10-2020

South and Mid-Wales Residential Construction DPS

LHC for the Welsh Procurement Alliance (WPA)- Wales- Budget: £5,000,000,000

25-10-2020

New Development at Great Chesterford, Essex

Uttlesford District Council- South East- Budget: £1,900,000

02-10-2020

Better Homes – Affordable Housing & Supported Living Provision

Scarborough Borough Council- Yorkshire and Humber- Budget: Undisclosed

02-10-2020

How do you secure a housing development agency tender?

Now you know how to find and identify your perfect tender, how do you succeed in securing a construction contract? Bid writing can be a daunting process. The process requires having CV’s, policies and case studies at the ready, and also answering some in-depth quality questions. It’s not uncommon to wonder if you need some extra support. Many successful suppliers look to outsource this process to the professionals to ensure maximum chances of success.

Hudson Succeed can help.

Hudson Succeed is our bid writing division. They support businesses who are:

New to tendering.
Struggling to see success from their tendering efforts.
Requiring assistance from expert Bid Writers through ad-hoc support for important construction bids.

Our team hold an 87% bid success rate. They have secured direct contract wins totalling over £300million for our clients.

Here are some examples of the services we offer:

A Tender Ready Programme
Ad-hoc Tender Writing
A Tender Improvement Package
Tender Mentor Services

Book a free demo with Construction Tenders

The best way to find all the best housing development agency tenders is through Construction Tenders. Why not contact us today to find out more about how Construction Tenders can benefit your business.

At Construction Tenders, we actively source construction leads and tenders for the following sub-sectors:

How to Win Building Contracts

Posted on 28th January 202121st March 2022 by John Hudson

Our top tips on how to win building contracts

If you’re wondering how to win building contracts, you’ve come to the right place.

Building contracts cover a plethora of different areas within the construction world. So, it can be daunting knowing where to start. Luckily for you, this blog will guide you in the right direction in securing construction contracts in the UK.

Obviously, the main purpose when you write a tender is to win. If you’re not seeing the results you want, hopefully, this blog will help you win your next building contract.

Building contracts is such a broad term, so here are just a few examples of subsections within construction bids:

Bricklaying
Welding
Digging
Pipelines
Cementing
Flatwork
Flooring

Today, we will be looking into how to win building contracts. First, let’s look at the different types of building contracts:

Commercial building contracts

Commercial building contracts are the most common way in which buyers find suppliers in construction. Building projects are quite often large projects. A commercial building contract could seek suppliers to construct warehouses, shopping centres or office towers, for example.

To find a supplier, a buyer will publish a tender for building contracts. The buyer will then collect and analyse bids from competing suppliers and the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) wins.

Public and private sector tenders

Many public sector organisations appoint a framework of contractors to construct a package of projects. The public sector includes government works and there are often more building contract opportunities to be found here. There are also opportunities within the private sector, but these are more difficult to source.

A contract sets out the relationship and expectations between two parties. Building construction contracts for tender typically outline the allocation risk and price. Below are some additional popular building construction contracts for tender within the UK:

NEC (The New Engineering Contract)
CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building)
JCT (The Joint Contracts Tribunal)

PAS 91

The PAS91 is a standardised pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) for the construction industry. You have to pass this in order to be considered for the building contract. For this, you must provide policies and answer some questions regarding:

Health & Safety
Quality Assurance
Equal Opportunities & diversity
Environmental Considerations

Luckily, if you’re an SME, the PAS91 is designed with you in mind. It simplifies the process in order to encourage more SMEs to become suppliers. The PAS91 helps buyers identify the most suitably qualified contractors quicker, using fewer resources. Essentially, it ensures that suppliers are qualified and fit the minimum standards required for the contract. This is all to help the buyers achieve a more sustainable procurement.

Note: if you’re a Constructionline member, you are automatically PAS91 complaint for some questions. This does not mean you can skip this stage completely. You may still need to complete a few questions.

5 Top tips for how to win building contracts

Below are five tips on how to win building contracts. Primarily, you need to think about what the buyer wants. Then, you want to convince them that you’re the best organisation for the job.

Be the MEAT

A MEAT doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest bid wins the contract. It simply means the buyer is looking for a contractor who can provide the best value throughout their bid. Contracts within the public sector are where a MEAT comes out on top.

Don’t make the mistake of deliberately pricing low-cost bids in an attempt to win. This could result in you making a loss after you’ve completed the project. This could also annoy your clients. Pricing lower cost bids could result in you failing to meet quality standards or having to then ask for additional funding. Neither of which, we’re sure you’ll want to do.

Instead, you should write your proposal to demonstrate how you will deliver an outstanding service to the client. Remember, you want to provide added value to the building works. This is frequently forgotten about. Below are some examples of what you could include:

Investment in the buyer’s customers. You could do this by employing local people or subcontractors to deliver the works.
Upskilling local communities via skills workshops, apprenticeships or work placements.
Planning work to minimise the project costs. You could do this by bulk ordering materials in advance to save on cost and avoid delays.
Reducing waste from your site by repurposing it.

Be specific

Study the specification as if your life depends on it. It’s there to help and will tell you, in great detail, the requirements of the project. Buyers want to know exactly how you’re going to deliver the works.

Give as much detail as you can within the set word count or page limit. This suggests how much detail the buyer wants you to go into. If they’re asking for a 500-word response, simply writing a couple of sentences won’t be sufficient. There’s a reason the question is asking for 500 words. Go into as much detail as you can, both clearly and concisely.

Demonstrate relevant past experience

In order to win a building contract, you need to demonstrate that you have past relevant experience. Buyers want to see how successful you have been in the past when fulfilling similar contracts. You want to demonstrate your proven track record of a project of similar complexity. You’ll likely get the age-old question that goes a little like this:

“Please provide 3 examples which demonstrate your technical capability in the market”.

When answering, remember to keep it relevant. Make sure you’re showing work of a similar calibre. Each bid should be tailored, compelling and fitting with the specification. You will usually be asked for three past case studies. It’s also worth noting the importance of timeframe when presenting your case studies. In our experience, you should provide case studies from the last five years, no later if possible.

Be prepared to provide qualifications

Relevant qualifications and accreditations are often required with any building contract. Building and construction sites can be hazardous environments and accidents do happen. You want to make sure your organisation is in keeping with health and safety regulations. You also need relevant accreditations and qualifications to demonstrate a safe worksite. These could include:

ISO 9001; 14001; 18001
BIM
SSIP
IOSH
Constructionline
CHAS
Subcontractor

Prepare your social value responses

Social value is an important part of every government contract and proposal, no matter the industry. Social value now has a minimum weighting of 10% within any public sector contract. It can hold of a weight of up to 30% in some tenders so it’s not something to just brush over. The three main aspects you need to focus on and include are:

Environmental
Social
Economic

Your sustainable development goals should maximise and protect the social values and impacts mentioned above. Don’t be vague. Buyers want to see you making commitments that you can actually keep to in this section. For example:

The environmental considerations you will take to reduce waste and fight climate change.
How you’re creating new skills and jobs in order to tackle economic inequality.
The equal opportunity policies you implement within your organisation.

This section would be a good place to include your ISO 14001. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s also important to mention how your organisation supports COVID-19 recovery.

If you’ve tried the tips above but still aren’t having any luck in winning building contacts, we can help.

We offer bid writing services

Now you understand how to win building contracts in practice, but do you actually have the time it takes?

Enter our sister company, Hudson Succeed.

They have over 40 years bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. The team provides four levels of bid writing support to maximise your success. Whether you’re brand new to the tendering process or you’ve tendered before, they have a service tailored for every need:

A Tender Ready programme.
The Tender Improvement package.
Tender Writing Services.
Tender Mentor support.

Where can I find building contract opportunities?

So, now you know how to win building contract, you’re probably wondering where you can find such opportunities. You likely don’t have the time to trawl through thousands of websites every day. If only there was one convenient, central portal that manually uploaded live building contracts daily. Well, look no further than our Construction Tenders portal.

Our portal is an opportunity tracking platform where we source all the construction and building tenders throughout the UK. We manually upload them in one convenient place to save you countless hours so you can focus on your business.

Other benefits include of subscribing to Construction Tenders include:

Receiving daily updates of available tenders, direct to your inbox.
Access to all private and public sector opportunities in the UK.
The ability to filter building contracts opportunities by keyword, budget, location and more.
No reliance on unreliable CPV codes or algorithms. We manually upload each tender making sure that you have access to 100% of building tenders.
Access to your own Account Manager. They can answer any questions or queries you may have about the tendering process.
Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our bid writing division.
20-minutes of free consultancy every month with our bid experts.

Here are just a few examples of past building contracts we sourced recently:

Merchant Framework 2021-2025

EFFICIENCY EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED- East Midlands- Budget £90,000,000

16-11-2020

Supply and Delivery of Cycle Lane Defenders

Inverclyde Council- Wales- Budget: Undisclosed

09-10-2020

Pylon Footbridge Concrete Repairs

Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council- North East- Budget: Undisclosed

12-10-2020

Proposed New Performance Auditorium at Conc na Gaoithe, Chapel Street, Tulla, Co Clare for Ceoltas Ceoltoiri Eireann.

Tulla Comhaltas Development Committee- International- Budget: Undisclosed

19-10-2020

Bowmer and Kirkland – NUoP Phase 1 Early engagement / opportunity

Cambridgeshire District Councils- Eastern- Budget: Undisclosed

09-10-2020

Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust (BMHT) – Off-Site Manufactured Housing – Market Engagement

Birmingham City Council- West Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

06-11-2020

Book a Demo with Construction Tenders

Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders today. As a client, you’ll receive a daily construction leads bulletin straight to your inbox when new building tenders are uploaded.

We actively source tenders for the following sub-sectors:

Excavation Tenders: Checklist for Bids

Posted on 7th December 202016th August 2022 by John Hudson

Finding Excavation Tenders

Excavation tenders can help your excavation company grow to new heights (or should we say new depths?). Do you want to win work on shorter contracts, boost your experience, and get reputable credentials under your belt? An excavation contract out for tender may run for 2 months and look great as experience for future projects. Or, are you looking to secure work on sizeable, ongoing projects for years at a time? Framework agreements may comprise of multiple lots and run for 1 – 4 years or more! Either way, tendering for work is a no-brainer when it comes to winning a steady stream of construction work.

How can we help?

If you’re looking for tendering opportunities or advice on how to bid for excavation contracts, you’re in the right place. At Hudson, we’ve got expertise in both. Construction Tenders, one of our 11 Hudson Discover tendering portals, can save you time when sourcing relevant excavation tenders. And the bid writers at Hudson Succeed offer tailored levels of expert support to produce successful construction bids for your company.

So, what do our opportunity trackers and bid writers advise? Here’s a quick rundown of what type of excavation tenders your business could be sourcing, right now. We’ll cover how you can put your best foot forward and dig up brand new opportunities to grow your business. (That’s the last of the excavation puns, we promise…)

What kind of excavation contracts are up for grabs?

Are you aware of the range of work available through excavation tenders? Excavation contracts can include many different techniques using various machinery, tools, equipment and explosives.

Excavation tenders may pertain to a number of processes, for instance:

Groundwork
Trenching
Wall Shafts
Tunnelling
Mining
Environmental restoration.

Most commonly in construction, excavation refers to the groundwork prior to a construction project. Groundwork essentially ensures the site foundations are prepared for building work, enabling the construction project to go ahead smoothly.

Examples of excavation tenders:

Excavation or groundwork may be defined by the type of material it involves. For example:

Topsoil excavation – This removes the surface layer of earth, including vegetation or decaying matter. Depth varies from site to site, but is usually between 150-300 mm. For example, a tender hosted on our platform sought topsoil excavation for a pervasive weed: Enabling works including groundworks and Japanese Knotweed removal for Cluid Housing Association.
Earth excavation – This involves removing the layer of soil beneath the topsoil. The removed material is often referred to as ‘spoil’ and can be re-used to construct embankments and foundations. For example, a tender hosted on our platform pertained to: Removal and proper disposal of spoil at the Menai Science Park for Bangor University.

Rock excavation – This involves using special excavation methods such as drilling or blasting with explosives. For example, a tender hosted on our platform sought contractors for: Quarry Drill and Blast Works and Explosives Supply for Forestry and Land Scotland.

Excavation can also be classified according to the purpose of the work. Here are few classifications along with examples:

Trench excavation is when an excavation’s length greatly exceeds its depth. Shallow trenches are usually considered to be less than 6 m deep, and deep trenches more than 6 m. For example, our Opportunity Trackers sourced a tender for: Trenching and base excavations for a new power supply – St James Car Park Cheltenham for Publica Group.

Road excavation involves preparation for roadworks. For example, Highways England recently signed a £35m contract with Wessex Archaeology Ltd for archaeology and excavation work. This is in advance of the main construction works on the A303, including a tunnel to divert traffic from Stonehenge.

Dredging involves excavating and removing material from below water level, commonly from the bottom of lakes, rivers, or harbours. For example, we hosted an excavation tender for: Crescent Quay – Dredging works for Wrexford County Council.

Basement excavation tenders may require auditing and assessment work prior to the building works. For example: Multi-Party Framework Agreement for the Provision of Basement Impact Assessment Auditor Services for Dublin City Council.

Bridge excavation involves the removal of material for the footing of bridges. Underwater excavations may require special methods of drill and blast. For example: Bracky Bridge Replacement including excavation adjacent to and in the river for the Department of Infrastructure

This is just a few examples of the types of construction contracts available for excavation workers. On Construction Tenders, we also host tenders for other excavation requirements, including the supply of plants (machinery), such as:

Archaeological excavation
Mains water excavation repairs
Proposed and post excavation assessments
Excavation, gritting and road sweeping
Supply of grave digging excavators
Supply of hydraulic excavators
Supply of compact mechanical excavators, and more!

How can excavation contractors boost their chances of success with a bid?

Much like excavation, the tendering process is all about evening the playing field for suppliers and creating fair, regulated competition. Also, at its core, tendering allows buyers to assess market pricing and find the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT). So, when it comes to tendering, your company needs to prepare to be directly compared to competitors.

Who offers the best price? Who has the most competent workforce? Who has demonstrated the most past experience that is relevant to the project? And, ultimately, who has produced the best bid?

All of these things – and more – may be considered in your tender response, so you must demonstrate your competency clearly. It’s always worth considering – what steps could be taken to put our business in better stead against the competition? Here are a few steps you could take right now to increase your success rate with excavation tenders…

Use a sector-specific portal with a variety of opportunities.

Use a tendering portal that offers a variety of opportunities, while still being accurate and specific to your industry. Also, make sure you’re investing in a tendering service that supports you.

Accuracy.

A time-saving way to find excavation tenders is through a sector-specific tendering portal which offers keyword tracking and customer support. Construction Tenders focuses on opportunities in construction – and doesn’t rely on inaccurate CPV codes. Our Opportunity Trackers are real people who manually source contracts for our clients, who can then filter opportunities by:

- Keywords
- Sector
- Budget
- Location

Construction Tenders sources contracts both big and small, from Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) to single supplier contracts. When there’s a range of work to be won, you have a higher chance of finding something suitable for your services.

For example, we host opportunities for excavation work on framework agreements. If you’re a smaller company, this may be more suited to your needs. A framework agreement for a building project may be made up of ten lots. Lot 1 could be the groundwork, requiring excavation of site and preparation for the foundations. This experience could provide a manageable workload for your company and act as a stepping stone to bigger projects.

Bid writing support.

Once you’ve found an excavation tender that’s perfect for your business, you’re not on your own! We have a bid writing division, Hudson Succeed, who can support with every step of the tendering process. They have a range support packages to help you see success in your tendering efforts:

Prepare to tender with Tender Ready.
Outsource a bid with Tender Writing.
Improve your success rate with Tender Improvement.
Get feedback on your current bid with Tender Mentor.

Get in touch for more information about our bid management consultancy services.

Tighten up your bid with the relevant qualifications.

Getting your business ready to tender includes preparing any relevant documentation to prove your qualifications and competency. Excavation work can be highly dangerous. Large plants (machinery) are bound to be on site to excavate and remove heavy loads of materials. It’s not uncommon for accidents to occur, so watertight accreditations and health and safety regulations are paramount.

How can you demonstrate competence effectively?

PAS91 and accreditations.

Any construction tender will generally always require a PAS91. This is essentially a standardised Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) for the construction industry in the UK. Its purpose is to ensure that buyers only engage ethical companies with safe practices. Our blog on the PQQ and PAS91 can shed more light on this stage of the tender.

A Constructionline Gold membership will exempt you from most sections of a PAS91. Other accreditations – such as ISO or CHAS – allow you to bypass certain sections, too. Consider obtaining these relevant accreditations if you want to streamline the bidding process for future excavation tenders.

CPCS cards.

Another method of improving site practices and boosting your reputation is investing in the Construction Plant Competence Scheme (CPCS). This scheme is devised to prove the competence of plant operators and improve safety awareness. The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) website hosts a range of excavation training courses to gain CPCS cards. The National Construction College (NCC) offers the following courses to gain a CPCS card for excavation machinery, for instance:

CPCS Excavator 180° Wheeled A10 and A12
CPCS Excavator 360° Tracked A59
CPCS Excavator 180˚ Wheeled and 360˚ Tracked Combined A12 and A59
CPCS Forward Tipping Dumpers A09
CPCS Lifting with Excavators A59C
CPCS Mini Excavator A58
Applicants can take the courses for up to 14 days if they have no prior experience. Or, if they have experience operating machinery but need a formal qualification, they can take condensed courses for as short as 2 days. Each course requires you have a CITB health, safety and environment test prior to attending. It’s worth considering if investing in further qualifications will put your company and employees in a better bidding position.

Need support preparing tender documents? The Tender Ready package helps your company prepare all the relevant documentation needed for a bid. Hudson Succeed works with your excavation experts to ensure your tenders are precise, concise and well-presented. Get in touch today to see how they can help.

Don’t skip social value.

Social value is becoming increasingly important in tender responses. Some things you can ask yourself in regard to this are:

Have you considered the environmental implications?

Excavation projects can be damaging to the scenery and landscapes. Can you demonstrate how you’ll minimise damage, and use environmentally friendly techniques and supplies? Always consider the local community and promote sustainability in your practices.

Can you make use of apprenticeship schemes and government initiatives?

Employing local people, apprentices, and relieving unemployment are all strong ways of demonstrating social value in a contract.

If you’re a company who specialises in excavation, you could be benefiting from apprenticeship incentives. The government currently offers payments to companies who hire new apprentices. For instance, gov.uk recently spotlighted excavation company C. Bamford Excavators Limited and their use of the apprenticeship scheme. They won The BT Award for Advanced Apprentice of the Year.

Also, the government’s sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) gives recently unemployed or redundant people new skills. Gov.uk also highlighted how the scheme is giving learners up-to-date experience and knowledge in groundworks. For example, through college tutoring and work placements with Highways England.

What are you waiting for? Start winning excavation tenders today!

Excavation tenders can open the door to a range of work, and buyers seek contractors for a wide variety of projects. Tendering can help you improve and evolve your practices and workforce, as long as you’re well-prepared and well-informed. So, now’s the time to unearth new opportunities and start growing your business! (Sorry – we couldn’t help ourselves!)

Why use Construction Tenders?

If you’re searching for excavation tenders, Construction Tenders, powered by Hudson Discover, will save you time and get you results. When you sign up, you’ll receive an email bulletin when new excavation tenders and construction leads are published, plus 24-hour portal access. Browse all the available excavation tenders, large and small, as often as you need!

At Construction Tenders, we source opportunities for;

Book a free live demo for a quick tour of our service. See how we can help your business grow!

Good News for Roofing Tenders: How to Make the Most of the New Green Scheme.

Posted on 2nd December 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

Roofing Tenders Set to Soar Under PM’s Green Scheme – Here’s How to Make the Most of Investments.

There’s good news for roofing tenders! On 18^th November, the government announced that the Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme will be extended by a year. The scheme was previously set to end in early 2021. Now, however, vouchers can be redeemed for a further year, as long as work is completed by 31st March 2022.

Simple Energy Advice states 25% of heat is lost through roofs, and the Green Homes Scheme aims to tackle this. It provides homeowners and landlords with vouchers to encourage the installation of energy-efficient improvements to their homes. The vouchers cover two-thirds of the costs for improvements, up to a maximum government contribution of £5,000. (Or up to £10,000 through the low-income support scheme.)

This includes roofing procedures such as:

flat roof insulation
pitched roof insulation
room in roof insulation
insulating a park home

The previous time scale for the scheme proved highly inconvenient for many roofing contractors, so an extension is great news. Chief Executive of the National Federation of Roofing Contractors (NRFC), James Talman, summarised how this extension benefits the roofing industry. He said:

“The decision to extend the Green Homes Grant by a further year is a welcome relief for the industry. The previous timescale was completely unrealistic when many firms needed time to get the relevant accreditations. And most contractors and suppliers were already operating at full capacity. The government should now set out its future intentions on retrofit, beyond the next year, to give longer-term certainty to the market.”

Now, roofing contractors who’ve obtained the relevant accreditations can benefit from the scheme for the next 16 months. If not, there is still time to get the accreditations and take part in the scheme.

So, what are the relevant accreditations?

The government states that at the time of installing for the Green Homes Grant, the contractor must:

Be a TrustMark-registered installer;
Be registered for the Green Homes Grant scheme;
Meet Publicly Available Specification (PAS) standards, such as
PAS 2030:2017
PAS 2030:2019
PAS 2035:2019 (for park homes, high rise buildings and buildings that are both traditionally constructed and protected)
Meet Microgeneration Installation Standard (MCS) standards, and;
Be certified by a body that has been accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).

Green Homes Grant installers can continue to work in homes through the second national lockdown, following the COVID-19 Secure guidelines.

And that’s not all!

The government’s announcement also outlines a £1 billion investment into making new and existing homes and public buildings more efficient. This presents a broad scope of opportunities for roofing tenders in the public sector.

This welcome news comes as part of PM Boris Johnson’s ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution. The green plan will create and support up to 250,000 British jobs. Point seven of the ten-point plan refers to greener homes and buildings. It contains the following objectives:

Point 7 – Homes and public buildings:

Making our homes, schools and hospitals greener, warmer and more energy efficient;
Creating 50,000 jobs by 2030, and a target to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028;
Extending the Green Homes Grant voucher scheme by a year;
Making public sector buildings greener, and;
Cutting bills for hospitals and schools, as part of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.

These objectives put public sector roofing tenders in great stead for 2021. After all, greener buildings all need greener roofing to reduce 25% of their heat loss. The government’s energy-saving efforts, therefore, rely heavily on the adjustment of existing roofing and the installation of new roofing systems. All in all, roofing tenders are set to be readily available as this £1 billion investment rolls out.

How to secure work on future roofing tenders.

With roofing opportunities set to rise, it will pay to have a solid tendering strategy going forward. This will ensure you make the most of the surge in opportunity and win relevant roofing tenders. Our tendering experts at Hudson are here to help you succeed and grow your business! Here’s some up-to-date advice on finding and winning roofing tenders as we head into 2021.

Find tenders via a sector-specific portal.

As roofing becomes a keen focus of government investment, make sure you’re using an effective tendering portal. You don’t want to miss out on valuable opportunities due to inaccurate CPV codes. So, first things first, make sure you’re using a portal that is optimised for your sector and uses manual tracking.

Construction Tenders offers a fully streamlined route to roofing tenders via manual tracking and keyword filtering. Our Opportunity Trackers manually search for the latest public and private sector roofing tender opportunities daily. This allows contractors to search for roofing tenders easily, using multiple filters to suit their needs. When you sign up to the portal, you’ll start receiving roofing tender opportunities straight to your inbox.

Book a free live demo to find out how Construction Tenders can benefit your business.

Prepare for the two-step tendering process.

Roofing tenders, like most tenders in the construction industry, are made up of a two-stage process.

Stage 1: Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ)

The PQQ is a questionnaire to determine if a contractor can deliver the quality standards that the client requires. This reduces a large number of bidders down to a few suppliers who are clearly capable of delivering the project.

The construction sector’s answer to the PQQ is the PAS91, a standardised test for construction workers. You must provide policies and answer questions regarding quality assurance, health and safety, equal opportunities and diversity, and more. If you are a Constructionline member, you are automatically PAS91 compliant.

With any PQQ, you essentially need to prove that the following aspects of your business are up to scratch:

Your level of experience;
Your ability to complete the works successfully and assure quality;
and your financial stability.

Stage 2: Invitation to Tender

Roofing contractors who pass the PQQ and are shortlisted will then receive an Invitation to Tender (ITT).

An ITT for a roofing tender will likely include the following information:

Letter of Invitation
Invitation to Tender document
Form of Tender
Preliminaries
Details on the Form of Contract and Contract Conditions
Specifications
Design Drawings
Tender Pricing Document
Associated Appendices

This is your opportunity to fully demonstrate your company’s capability and capacity to deliver the required roofing works.

Consider tendering for work on larger contracts.

An added benefit of using a tendering portal is that it opens up doors to larger projects. This could include work on a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) or a framework agreement. SMEs or sole traders in the roofing industry wouldn’t access these opportunities organically.

For example, Swindon Borough Council put out a two-stage tender for qualified contractors to undertake the Roofing Renewal Programme. This applies to many housing properties, and the overall contract period estimated value is £4.8 million over 4 years.

A large roofing contract like this is a good opportunity for suppliers who can provide multiple services. For instance, Swindon Borough Council requires roofing contractors to undertake a range of works, including:

the removal of existing roof coverings as required,
the supply and installation of new roof covering as required,
the renewal of associated items at roof level and below,
the provision of scaffolding required to carry out the works,
making good to the structure and finishing’s as required,
flat to pitch conversions,
gas flue safety check procedure.

With any tendering opportunity which requires scaffolding provision, you must also provide accreditations and case studies unique to providing scaffolding. Our advice on compliance for scaffolding tenders and insulation tenders may be helpful if you provide multiple services.

Ensure your roofing tender stands out.

Often, a highly detailed specification requires a highly detailed tender response. Creating a fully compliant roofing tender response can feel overwhelming, but there are options for tender support. Hudson Succeed provides writing support and professional consultation to soften the burden and maximise your chances of success when tendering for construction contracts.

Our bid writing experts have extensive experience – and an 87% success rate at winning bids for clients. Whether you’re tendering for the first time or simply need advice on improving your success rate, there’s a service for you. Our four-levels of tender support are:

Here are some recommendations from our bid-writing experts on how to make your roofing tender stand out. We’ve highlighted some areas where you should ensure you’re taking extra steps to succeed.

Site visits.

Visiting the site is an opportunity to gain insight and strengthen your roofing tender response in several ways. You can assess the roofing work required, scout out competition, and gain further understanding of the buyer’s requirements.

Assessing a site first-hand allows a roofing contractor to quote their costs, materials and scope of work much more accurately. To make the most of your site visit and ensure your tender response stands out, be sure to:

Read all the specified requirements before deciding whether this is the right contract for you.
Make a list of all the information you need to learn and take it with you.
Be confident and ask clarification questions to show engagement with the buyer.
Look for visual clues relating to the buyer and their work culture.
Case studies.

Case studies hold great importance in a tender response. Proving to the buyer that you’ve successfully completed similar roofing work – with high client satisfaction – is essential. The PQQs usually require contractors to demonstrate 3 previous contract examples.

Our bid writing experts advise you to create at least three case studies for every service you offer. This will further strengthen your tender response. For instance, if you provide roofing, scaffolding, and insulation services, you should develop at least nine case studies.

Both our Tender Ready and Improvement programmes include creating effective case studies for your business. Our free Tender VLE masterclass also covers the essentials of case studies, with an easy to follow 4-step structure.

Health and safety.

Roofing is one of the most hazardous areas of construction because it involves work at height. In fact, roof work accounts for 25% of all deaths in the construction industry. Having a compliant Health & Safety manual is absolutely essential and it will likely be required during the tendering process. This may be required during the PQQ stage, or as part of your quality response.

Make your tender response stand out by creating a company-branded manual. This will give a great first impression of your brand to buyers. The Tender Ready programme can provide support with this. If you provide the relevant information, our bid writers can create a well-designed and clearly structured manual, guaranteed to impress.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) offers an extensive range of advice and reading on safety regulations for roofing work. You should familiarise yourself with as much relevant information as possible. HSE advises that the principle elements of law relevant to roof work health and safety are:

the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974;
Work at Height Regulations 2005;
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999;
Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015;
Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998; and
the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

Always make sure you’re fully compliant with the health and safety regulations specific to the roofing tender.

COVID-19 secure guidelines.

Consider how you’ll effectively manage coronavirus and adhere to the most up to date guidelines in your tender response. This will likely depend on the site-specific assessment you complete via your site visit. This could pertain to:

Risk management of your workforce (i.e. alternating shift patterns, social distancing measures on-site)
Delivery of materials (i.e. reducing frequency to maintain regulations)

Providing supplementary supporting evidence to prove this can strengthen your tender further, such as a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) register. Make sure you’ve covered all bases!

Need any further support with the tendering process? Get in touch with Hudson Succeed to see how we can increase your chances of success.

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

Sign up to Construction Tenders today and receive a daily construction leads bulletin straight to your inbox. The bulletin contains all the relevant small, and larger, construction tenders that we have uploaded that day.

This includes the following:

Roofing Tenders
Architectural Tenders
Refurbishment Tenders
Brickwork Tenders
Building Works
Health & Safety Tenders
Small Construction Tenders
Civil Engineering Tenders
Electrical Tenders
Surveying Tenders
Demolition Tenders
Flooring Tenders
Glass Tenders
M&E
Cost Consultancy
Painting Contracts
Decorating Tenders
Masonry and many more.

And if you have any questions, your dedicated account manager will be on hand to help. What opportunities will you find? Contact us today, for a free live demo and find out how our exclusive member’s site help find and win construction bids.

What Really Matters in Commercial Building Tenders?

Posted on 18th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

How to Focus Your Commercial Building Tender on What Matters

What is a commercial building tender?

Commercial building tenders are the most common way in which buyers find suppliers to construct buildings for commercial purposes. The term covers a wide range of building projects that are, quite often, large contracts. For instance, a commercial building tender could seek suppliers to construct office towers, warehouses, or shopping centres.

Put simply, a buyer will go to the external market with a commercial building tender. This could be part of a specification for building a new leisure centre. This buyer then collects, analyses and nominate bids from suppliers, and the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) wins.

What are the best practices when writing commercial building tenders?

Writing commercial building tenders requires a lot of industry-specific knowledge and skill. Large construction contracts, like commercial building tenders, often involve multiple suppliers operating collaboratively under a framework agreement. Watch our free Tender VLE masterclass on Framework Agreements for more information on how this works. Commercial building work itself is highly technical and costly, therefore the tender needs to be exhaustive. In order to respond effectively to the tender specifications, you need in-depth knowledge of the regulations and legislative examples.

Read our advice on the best practices for general bid writing and creating a water-tight argument for your business. We also have a successful bid writing division, Hudson Succeed. If your business needs to outsource the writing and submission of technical tenders, or simply needs advice, get in touch.

This blog will focus on, arguably, the most important aspect of your commercial building tender. This is its social value, i.e. how you consider the wider community impact of the project. We’ll explain why demonstrating social value can make a BIG difference in whether or not you win a bid.

Public opinion on commercial building tenders

Despite the breadth of commercial building, it is a less recognised sub-sector of construction.

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) reported that the British public underestimates the importance of commercial building tenders. When quizzed on what they think is the most important element of the construction industry, the public emphasised roadwork. Roadwork is the defining sub-sector of construction in the public imagination. Significantly, roadwork also came top when the public was asked where the government should spend more money in construction.

However, roadwork accounts for a relatively small proportion of activity compared to commercial building, educational building and leisure construction projects.

Why does public perception matter?

Well, firstly, it’s important that the construction industry – and those who make policy decisions – take public opinion into consideration. To do this more effectively, they need to know where the public lacks understanding of construction and correct these misconceptions. Otherwise, much-needed budgets for commercial building tenders could be slashed due to misconception. In short – more budget for commercial building tenders, please, not roadworks!

Also, commercial builds can often get a negative reception when they are made public. A commercial building tender for a large warehouse nearby could upset local people if they’re worried about the natural landscape. Opinions could change, however, if the build provided social value by hiring locally and offering work experience to young people.

An example of this is seen as plans to build a 12,500-capacity Gateshead Arena on Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s quayside has caused pushback. Some residents have complained over the obtrusive design of a hotel proposed in the plan. The project, however, is planning to work with local partners and add over 1,000 jobs to the regional economy. Ultimately, this will make the area more attractive to residents, visitors and investors.

Public tensions make it especially important to emphasise positive social value in your commercial building tenders. Getting the local community on your side is a great way to increase funding and your chances of winning.

Where exactly can social value come into a commercial building tender?

Social value has become a much more prominent aspect of commercial building tenders in recent years.

Demonstrating social value in construction bids is essentially detailing the contribution your work will make to society and local communities. This can be boiled down to the following:

reducing inequality;
promoting wellbeing;
decreasing the impact on the environment.

With each aspect of social value, there’s a variety of ways to prove how you can positively impact the local community. For example, will you employ local people? Great. This can demonstrate social value in each of the following ways:

It could create fiscal saving for the Government if these people were previously unemployed.
You could improve these people’s livelihoods and future prospects.
It could increase public health by reducing dependence on public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic and national lockdowns.
It could positively impact local education if you have apprentices in your supply chain.
You could boost local trade if your procurement process prioritises local suppliers.

See? You can showcase social value in a multitude of ways in commercial building tenders, once you know what to consider!

Make sure to always use figures to back up your claims. How many local people will you employ, in how many miles radius of the site? It’s important to be realistic and specific with any assertions in your commercial building tender. Watch our free Tender VLE masterclass, Evidence is Key, for more insight on adding evidence to your tender.

Why does social value matter more in commercial building tenders?

It’s particularly beneficial to consider social value when pitching for a commercial building tender rather than, say, excavation tenders.

Why? Well, in short, commercial builds create public spaces. Once completed, most commercial projects will see large public footfall in their lifetime, whether this is staff or customers. For instance, commercial builds like leisure centres and local shopping centres will form community ‘hubs’. Lots of people use them and they can become a regular part of local life. (This extends to pubs, bars, even bingo halls!)

Therefore, the winning suppliers of commercial building tenders will often end up having indirect, yet significant, impacts on local life. It’s very important to consider the bigger picture and wider community carefully when tendering for commercial work.

Using social value to improve public opinion in a commercial building tender doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s a good example that does so simply and effectively.

Willmott Dixon’s build of The Evolution Centre at Oaklands College in St Albans. The site team emphasised Willmott Dixon’s ambition to be net zero carbon by 2030. To do this, they created electrical connections to the grid. This meant diesel generators were not needed for the tower crane, site and welfare facilities. The project also publicised its use of local community wood recycling to ensure any surplus timber was reused rather than wasted.

Future prospects for commercial building tenders

It’s an uncertain time for business, as we find ourselves in national lockdown again heading towards 2021. One thing is truer now, more than ever, for commercial building tenders. Companies that prioritise local economic and social value are in the best stead to see investment and continue operating successfully.

You will see increased success with this in mind.

Looking forward, the CITB’s Construction Skills Network (CSN) sees a bounce back in commercial construction growth. It predicts an annual average growth rate of 1.2% until 2023, with the number employed rising over the period. It also forecasts new construction activity in London to expand by an annual average of 2.1%. New commercial building will play a part.

So, are you looking to secure commercial building tenders right now? If so, we can increase your chances of finding relevant tenders with our sector-specific portal, Construction Tenders. Our Opportunity Trackers ensure much higher accuracy than CPV codes used on other portals.

And if you need help writing a commercial building tender, we have 4 levels of support to fit your needs.

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders today. As a client, you’ll receive a daily bulletin straight to your inbox when new tenders are uploaded. The bulletin contains all the relevant construction leads that we have sourced that day.

We actively source tenders for the following sub-sectors:

Building Tenders for SMEs

Posted on 12th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

Building Tenders: How to Prepare and Win as an SME

Building tenders aren’t the most traditional route that SMEs take to grow their building businesses. Instead, tradesmen often rely heavily on their reputation, local community, and word of mouth. In fact, a Constructionline survey looked at how construction SMEs expected to grow their business. They found that 75% of respondents expected future opportunities to come from their business’ reputation for producing high-quality work.

If this sounds like you, we think you need to hear this: reputation won’t cut it! If you aren’t utilising building tenders, then you’re missing out on countless opportunities that could grow your SME, right now. Especially when it comes to larger projects or ongoing jobs.

Should I stick to small construction projects as an SME?

No – you’re not too small to pitch for larger jobs. There are big opportunities available for smaller businesses, especially when it comes to frameworks and ‘partnering up.’

In fact, the legal framework of public sector procurement actively encourages free and open competition and value for money. This means there will always be opportunities for businesses of all sizes. The UK government has a target to ensure the growth of SMEs, giving those smaller companies a fair chance at winning building tenders.

Public sector buyers will look for MEAT (The Most Economically Advantageous Tender), regardless of your size. And often, the personal touch of an SME is what clients are looking for. SMEs can specialise in ways that larger firms can’t while maintaining high levels of flexibility. Plenty of larger clients are seeking smaller contractors in their building tenders for these reasons.

Many public sector bodies appoint a framework of contractors to construct a package of projects. This is often on a Design & Build basis, and there will often be design repetition here. So, if your service makes a positive impression, it is likely to be used repeatedly. This is a great way to secure ongoing work for longer periods, often with numerous high-value contract lots.

Larger projects? Ongoing work? What are you waiting for!?

Too many SME’s aren’t utilising building tenders because they don’t understand the process, or don’t think it’s right for them. We’ll explain why that’s not true. Building tenders are absolutely the right route for small businesses in construction.

So, here’s how you can prepare for building tenders and succeed as an SME.

Preparing for building tenders

Preparation is the key to success when tendering for a construction contract in the UK. Once you’re prepared and have the correct information ready, completing your building tender will feel much more straightforward.

Let’s take a look at the common stages of a building tender, and how your SME can prepare for them.

A PAS 91 – What is it?

– The PAS 91 is simply a standardised Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) for construction bids. You must pass this in order for the rest of your tender to be considered. You must provide policies and answer questions regarding;

Quality assurance;
Health and safety;
Environmental considerations;
Equal opportunities & diversity and more.

– Good news – the PAS 91 is designed with SME’s in mind. It simplifies the tendering process in order to encourage more suppliers (particularly SMEs) to apply for work. Overall, it helps buyers identify suitably qualified contractors with less time and resources. It essentially ensures that suppliers fit the minimum standards of a job and helps buyers achieve more sustainable procurement.
– If you are a Constructionline member, you are automatically PAS 91 compliant for some questions, however, you may still need to complete a few sections.

How can I succeed as an SME?

– It helps to be prepared when completing a PAS 91. It’s important that you can attach relevant and up-to-date evidence and accreditations wherever you are prompted to do so. Make sure you have carefully constructed your policies and answers to the cover all the areas mentioned above. Having these common areas pre-prepared will save you a lot of time in the long run. In tender-writing, we call pre-prepared aspects of a tender “boilerplates”. For more information on the dos and don’ts of boilerplates, please watch our free masterclass on Tender VLE.

– When bidding for building tenders, in particular, you can assume that the buyer will always require certain information from you. Some preparation can therefore be done before you even find the building tender. For instance, how do you plan to minimise health and safety risks on the building site? This will always be an aspect of any building tender. Having a pre-prepared health and safety response will save you time. You can then focus this valuable time elsewhere in your building tender.

– However, be careful when it comes to creating boilerplates and copy and pasting content. There are areas where this won’t suffice, when the content must be up to date and purposeful. This is especially important now as your health and safety response, for instance, must consider the management of coronavirus. Government advice and regulations on coronavirus are continually changing and updating. You may need to continually adjust aspects of the build to ensure you comply with the most recent advice. For instance, managing staff schedules differently, or reducing delivery frequencies to the build site.

A method statement – What is it?

– This is where you explain and answer questions on how you plan to deliver your services. You must detail how you will meet the buyer’s requirements. Think of this as your chance to sell your services in the best light possible. It’s a detailed section of the tender: you need to consider every aspect of the job and how you fit the bill.

– As part of these method statements, you may need to submit supporting documentation, such as policies, procedures, and accreditations. You may also need to provide the qualifications and certifications of your staff to prove their competency.

How can I succeed as an SME?

– You should not make false claims in your method statements. Some or all of the content could become legally binding once you win the contract, so it’s important to be honest and realistic. So, how can you prove your value as an SME when you’re up against boastful statistics from larger companies?

– This is where a good reputation can come into play. Do you have all the relevant TrustMarks for your trade? Showing the buyer that you adhere to government standards can bolster your building tender and prove your reliability.

– Branding is another way in which you can utilise your reputation as an SME. Watch our free masterclass on branding on Tender VLE and make sure you’re presenting your business effectively.

A pricing schedule – What is it?

– You will have to complete a pricing schedule as part of your tender response. Make sure you price your services competitively without making a loss.

How can I succeed as an SME?

– Most buyers have preferred contract forms – for example, Durham County Council may only use NEC4 contracts. You can use this to your advantage by researching which contract forms buyers use. Bid for those with which you already have experience where possible. You can then use this as a selling point in your building tender.

Further support

Even if you’re highly prepared, you may lack the corporate literature or writing skills to tackle building tenders or you may be at capacity with your existing team. In addition, there are so many benefits to having a friend critically review your bid before submission, ensuring responses are directly answering the criteria. It’s imperative that a tender represents your business in the best possible light with no room for error. A quality SME can often be overlooked purely because it lacks a quality submission on paper. This can be highly frustrating. Especially when you know you have the capabilities to complete a contract in practice. Investing in building tenders via professional bid writing is a great method of growing your SME.

Need support?

If you want support with building tenders to grow your business, contact the Hudson Helpline. Our experts can give you bespoke advice regarding any queries you may have.

If you aren’t sure where to start with building tenders, we can support you through every step of the process. Our professional bid writers at Hudson Succeed can transform the way buyers view your business. They will ensure you’re putting your best foot forward in every bid. We have four support packages to help you win any building tender that is right for you. With an 87% success rate, our team can help you to win big and small building tenders, in any form. Contact us today to learn more about the options available to you.

If you simply need help finding building tenders, our Construction Tenders portal can solve this for you.

What are the benefits of using Construction Tenders?

– We are an industry-specific portal and we source both public and private sector opportunities across the UK.

– Our opportunity trackers search numerous portals every day. They then upload all new public and private construction tenders to our site and send them directly to you. You’ll receive all the current building tenders, directly to your inbox. These tenders have been manually sourced by real people – not CPV codes, which are often inaccurate. This guarantees accuracy and relevancy when using the portal, saving you valuable time.

– Multiple users can access the portal to make remote working with your team easier and more effective. You can access our popular ‘Tasks’ function in the portal. Important tasks can be split up and assigned to different members of your team as you form your tender. For instance, one team member may be assigned to focus on pricing, and another to quality, and so on. All of this can be tracked and evaluated succinctly as you form your tender remotely.

Below are previous building tenders sourced on our portal:

SSE Substation Building Construction – Carfax Close, Swindon

Swindon Borough Council- South West- Budget: Undisclosed

Thames Water Tenders £18m Building Construction Work Contract

Thames Water- London- Budget: £17,900,000

UK-London: Building Construction Work

Hyde Housing Association- London- Budget: £2,000,000,000

York Global Initiative for Safe Autonomy Building Construction

University of York- Yorkshire and Humber- Budget: £10,000,000

General Building Construction Framework Civils

Dublin Bus / Bus Atha Cliath- International- Budget: Undisclosed

See how our improved methods of tendering can win you building tenders and grow your business. Book a free live demo today.

Get in Touch

The construction industry has a wide range of building tenders on offer. If you need support in your tendering efforts, contact us today. Sign up to Construction Tenders and receive a daily construction leads bulletin of relevant tenders straight to your inbox.

This includes the following:

Bricklaying Tenders & Advice for SMEs

Posted on 6th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

How to Win Bricklaying Tenders as the Construction Industry ‘Bounces Back’

Bricklaying tenders are a gateway for growing your brickwork business. But is now a good time to grow as an SME, as we head into another National Lockdown?

At first glance, you may not think so. Coronavirus and lockdown restrictions had a significant impact on businesses in the construction industry earlier this year. In March, major construction projects ground to a halt across the country.

The fallout from these mass shutdowns continues to have an impact on the construction industry. As we enter a second National Lockdown, you’re probably wondering, will history repeat itself?

It’s understandable to be concerned about what the future of bricklaying looks like in 2020. What do the latest government restrictions mean for your sector? And how can you secure bricklaying tenders that are right for your business during a second National Lockdown?

Well, we’ve checked the stats with your bricklaying business in mind. Now is as good a time as any to win bricklaying tenders and grow your business. Here’s why – and how to do it.

What is the construction ‘bounce-back’?

Many industries are still in sharp decline due to coronavirus. It can feel like there’s nothing but bad news for businesses at the moment. But this simply isn’t true – the construction industry is back in growth-mode.

It’s been coined the construction ‘bounce-back’ as the industry, quite literally, rebuilds itself.

This summer, the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) reported that almost 50% of SME builders were enjoying an uptick in demand. This state-of-trade survey also specified that 40% expected their workload to increase further in Autumn.

Did this increase happen? In short – yes! Let’s look at this in more detail.

To measure the construction bounce-back, we can look at the PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) of the construction industry. This index summarises economic trends in the manufacturing and service sectors and shows whether market conditions are expanding or contracting. Ultimately, the PMI provides information about current and future business conditions to companies, analysts, and investors.

The Construction PMI in the UK shows the industry has bounced back and is operating at above-average levels:

As reported by the IHS Markit/CIPS UK, the UK Construction PMI hit 53.1 in October 2020. This comes after a 12-year average of 51.11 between 2008 and 2020, and an all-time low of 8.20 in April of 2020.
Construction companies report feeling optimistic towards their prospects for the next 12 months. In fact, business optimism has hit a 3-year high in the construction industry. As Markit Economics reported, there are high-hopes for economic recovery and an overall reduction in COVID-19 disruption going into 2021.
As the construction industry avoids shutdown during the second National Lockdown, business optimism is set to remain high for the sector. Build UK announced that the latest government restrictions will have no direct impact on their business or trading. Operations across all Build UK sites remain fully open to support the construction industry.
New orders in the construction sector are also seeing their highest increase since December 2015. This is largely due to delayed projects that were halted earlier in the year amid the initial COVID-19 crisis.

What does this all mean for bricklaying tenders?

All of this is good news for bricklayers. But it gets better:

Housebuilding was the best-performing area of all construction activity in October 2020, scoring a PMI of 62.4. You don’t need to be a consultant to see that’s a great figure. The speed of recovery for housebuilding has eased only slightly since September 2020. This means the bounce-back is showing very little signs of slowing as of November 2020.

This revival is due to pent up demand from stalled or cancelled projects. The boost also stems in part from the fact that housing market conditions have improved in recent months.

As these projects spring into action, they bring a surge of opportunities. Now is the time to source bricklaying tenders and grow your business.

How do I find bricklaying tenders during the bounce-back?

New opportunities in the sector are set to steadily increase as we enter 2021. So, how should you set about finding construction contracts effectively?

Make sure you’re using a portal that is specific to your industry. This will save you countless time trawling through irrelevant results when you could be growing your business.

Signing up to our Construction Tenders portal provides you with a service that is tailored to your needs from day one. Our opportunity trackers (humans, not robots!) manually search the latest bricklaying tender opportunities every day so you don’t have to. This means every result you see is specific to your sector and relevant to the services you offer. You’ll receive updates straight to your inbox.

Opportunities for bricklaying tenders may include:

Masonry and bricklaying work
Programme and Project Management
Renovation Works
Grout packers
Building and Maintenance Services
Training
Bricklaying health and safety consultancy

If you have any questions, your dedicated account manager will always be on hand to answer them.

How do I secure the perfect bricklaying tender?

Have you already found a bricklaying tender perfect for your organisation? Do you want to increase your chances of securing the tenders that are right for your business once you’ve found them?

There is a lot to consider when writing a bricklaying tender, especially now.

A key aspect of construction bids in today’s climate is the effective management of coronavirus. Many buyers will expect this to be considered within tender responses, especially now national restrictions are in place again. You must plan how you will analyse risks and communicate risk management strategies to your workforce.

National restrictions impact how construction sites operate. Always refer to the latest government guidance when planning your bricklaying tender response. You may need to consider:

Planning your approach in advance
Strategically reducing delivery frequencies
Minimising contact between people
Managing staff schedules differently.

Our Hudson Succeed division provides writing support and professional consultation to help you maximise your chances of success. Our dedicated team of bid writers have extensive experience delivering excellent tenders with an 87% success rate.

Whether you are tendering for the first time or have tendered before, we have a service suitable for you. We tailor each service to your needs through the following tender packages:

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders today. Clients receive a daily bulletin with construction leads straight to their inbox when new tenders are uploaded. The bulletin contains all the relevant construction opportunities that we have sourced that day.

Below are previous bricklaying tenders sourced on our portal:

Early Market Engagement Questionnaire – Environmental Improvement Works

Believe housing- North East- Budget: Undisclosed

31-07-2020

Environmental Facilities Work To 187 Properties Oakridge Sketty, Swansea

City and County of Swansea- Wales- Budget: Undisclosed

17-07-2020

Construction of a replacement retaining wall – Belmont, Dreemskerry Road, Maughold

Isle of Man Government- International- Budget: Undisclosed

25-06-2020

Boundary Wall – Clare Court (v2)

Stroud District Council- South West- Budget: Undisclosed

08-07-2020

Take Down and Rebuild Defective Retaining Wall at Parwich Primary School, The Square, Parwich, Ashbourne

Derbyshire County Council- East Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

11-06-2020

We actively source tenders for the following sub-sectors:

A Guide to Finding the Best Construction Bid Sites

Posted on 5th November 202023rd March 2022 by John Hudson

How to Choose the Best Construction Bid Site for Your Business

Using the best construction bid sites is a vital step in finding relevant tenders and growing your business.

You might be wondering, what is tendering? And why is it important to the construction sector? You’re not alone – many construction businesses miss out on construction leads simply by not utilising the tendering process. In short, tendering is the most common way in which a buyer finds the most appropriate supplier for goods or services. Including tendering in your business strategy allows you to secure contracts from buyers you may never have connected with otherwise. This is invaluable when it comes to growing your business sustainably.

If you’re new to tendering, finding the best construction bid site can seem like a daunting task. What exactly should you be looking out for, anyway? When you search ‘best construction bid sites’ in Google, the results can be overwhelming. Plenty of sites will provide you with reams of opportunities from countless buyers. Job done! Right? Not quite.

You’ll often find yourself wading through tenders with requirements that don’t suit your business in the slightest. Finding a construction bid site with tenders that are specific to your business can become a stressful and fruitless process. Unless you know exactly where to look!

What to Look for In Construction Bid Sites?

What should you be looking out for to find the best construction bid site for your business? We’ve created a quick and comprehensive guide so you can rest assured that you’re looking in the right place:

Here are the top 7 things you should look for to find the best construction bid site and secure relevant contracts:

The portal doesn’t rely on CPVs.

There’s a fundamental problem with the way most construction bid sites source tenders for businesses – CPV codes.

CPV stands for Common Procurement Vocabulary. A CPV code is an 8-digit code which allows buyers to classify what they are procuring in a succinct way. In theory, suppliers should be able to use CPV codes to source perfect business opportunities quickly and effectively.

Sound too easy to you? You’re right. In practice, this doesn’t happen.

Studies show that close to 30% of CPV codes are tagged inaccurately. It’s easy to make a mistake when tagging a tender with a complex 8-digit code. Many buyers also don’t understand the requirements of CPV codes and so they use them incorrectly, or not at all.

So, what does this mean for your business? Well, this is particularly harmful in a sector as varied as construction with such a broad range of sub-sectors. On most construction bid sites, clients are not finding all of the tenders that are relevant to their specific services. Even if you’re searching via relevant CPV codes, you’re missing out on countless contracts that could grow your business.

For example, imagine an Architecture firm registers to a portal that tracks tenders via CPV codes. To use the portal effectively, the firm would need someone in their team with a comprehensive understanding of CPV codes. Even then, up to 30% of the results they come across could be tagged incorrectly. They could end up trawling through tenders for contracts such as the supply of bedding plants or website development services. Obviously, these tenders would be completely irrelevant to the Architecture firm’s services. This ultimately defeats the purpose of a tracking portal which should save you time when sourcing new business opportunities.

The portal uses manual tracking.

The best way around the shortfalls of CPV codes? Manual keyword tracking.

At Construction Tenders, we don’t rely on CPV codes to source tenders for our clients. Instead, our dedicated team of Opportunity Trackers manually search thousands of sources every day. They read the requirements of every buyer and manually tag each tender with the correct industry-driven keywords. This avoids the problem of sub-sectors being mislabelled with the wrong CPV code. It also eliminates the need for someone in your firm to comprehensively understand CPV codes. We handle all of that for you.

When you sign up to Construction Tenders, you can simply enter the keywords that best describe your services. Search these keywords and you’ll be able to access relevant opportunities instantly. It’s that easy. Every tender you see on our portal is manually tracked, and therefore relevant to the services you offer. No exceptions.

Ultimately, our manual tracking saves you countless hours of searching through irrelevant tenders and gives you instant results.

The system focuses on your industry.

Most bid sites source tenders for all industries so there’s always a high chance of seeing irrelevant opportunities. You could find plenty of tenders for video production, but this is no good if you’re a roofer.

With Construction Tenders, every opportunity is sector-specific. Our focused approach is the most effective way to provide you with relevant tenders.

Our Opportunity Trackers source specific opportunities for a range sub-sectors, including:

Refurbishment
Building Works
Civil Engineering
Surveying
Demolition
Masonry, and many more.

It allows for remote working in teams.

Remote working has changed the way businesses operate in a lot of ways. Tendering remotely is a lot easier when you have access to a portal which allows you to work in teams.

We’ve designed our tendering portal specifically to make remote working easier. Our portal allows you to give multiple colleagues access to your business account. Each colleague can then assign tasks and add tenders to their favourites page.

You’re supported by an account manager.

If your business is new to tendering, we understand that you might need some extra support. With the right support, scouring the web for the best construction bids becomes a much less daunting task.

Via access to an account manager, you will always have on-hand advice and guidance to help you find relevant opportunities. You might waste time applying for a tender that isn’t right for you or that you’re unable to carry out. You might miss opportunities that are perfect for your business by questioning your ability to win a bid. This can all form a stressful process.

But it doesn’t have to be.

With our Construction Tenders portal, you will be assigned a dedicated account manager throughout your subscription. It’s their job to answer any questions you might have, regarding tendering, while using the portal.

An account manager will support you in a range of ways;

Maximising the way you use our tendering portal;
Advice around tendering and procurement;
Connecting you to other Hudson support services;
Queries around a bid that you require support with;
Alerting you when exclusive opportunities are published that are perfect for your business, and;
Ensuring you receive an email alert when new, relevant tenders, are uploaded.

Clients can always contact their dedicated account manager by phone or email, at any time throughout their subscription. This means you’ll always have a solid understanding of where you stand throughout the tendering process.

You have access to virtual learning.

Great! You’ve found the best construction bid site and, consequently, the perfect contract to bolster your business. You now see that the buyer has asked for a technical and in-depth response. Bids can sometimes require over 10,000 word responses with stringent requirements. Even if you have time to do this – which, let’s be honest, who does? – can you show why you’re irrefutably the best business for the job? Do you know how to write a winning bid?

If not, don’t worry. We’ve created Tender VLE specifically to eliminate the confusion around tendering and procurement. Tender VLE is a free service which gives your business expert advice on the ins and outs of tendering. Through video masterclasses, fact sheets, blogs and templates, you’ll learn how to create a winning tender and secure the best contracts.

You can outsource bid writing if needed.

Some people just aren’t natural-born writers. A good bid writer can transform the way buyers view your business – and give you exponential results.

We have developed Hudson Succeed, our bid writing division, to carry our clients through the bidding process every step of the way. Our team are exceptional Bid Writers who assist businesses in multiple sectors to write compelling and technical narratives. With the help of Hudson Succeed, countless construction sector companies have grown their businesses effectively. The team holds an 87% bid success rate and are trusted by over 700 businesses, globally.

How do I get started?

If you’re looking to secure construction contracts UK, Construction Tenders can save you countless time and money that you’d spend manually searching. You’ll instead gain new business opportunities that are specifically relevant to you. Unlike other construction bid sites, we’ve humanised tendering at every level – from manual tracking to account management. This high level of attention to detail secures the best results for your business.

You will receive daily alerts when tenders are released for services in your sector as well as 24-hour access to our Construction Tenders portal. Book a free live demo of the portal today and see how the portal can help your business grow with construction leads. You’ll see all of the current opportunities available and understand how the system will work for your business.

Below are previous construction bids sourced on our portal:

Fender Pile Replacement Works

Fenland District Council- Eastern- Budget: £90,000

Dunnikier Business Units, Kirkcaldy – Steelworks, Roof and Wall Cladding Works Package

Fife Council- Scotland- Budget: Undisclosed

Communal Floor Replacement

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council- Eastern- Budget: Undisclosed

Asbestos Removal Services

Yorkshire and Humber Police Procurement (Y&HPP)- Yorkshire and Humber- Budget: £1,500,000

Roofing Repairs (Framework)

Nottingham City Council- East Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

We source tenders for services including:

Architectural Tenders
Refurbishment Tenders
Brickwork Tenders
Building Works
Health & Safety Tenders
Small Construction Tenders
Civil Engineering Tenders
Electrical Tenders
Surveying Tenders
Demolition Tenders
Flooring Tenders
Glass Tenders
M&E
Cost Consultancy
Painting Contracts
Decorating Tenders
Masonry and many more.

Civil engineering tenders and where to find them

Minor Civils and building works

Major and complex works

RIBA planning and outline

Framework agreements

Past experience

The contract will be awarded to the MEAT

Social value

Company CVs

Need assistance writing your next civil engineering tenders?

Tender Writing

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Tender Mentor

Where can I source civil engineering tender opportunities?

Below are previous civil engineering tenders sourced on our portal:

A subscription to Construction Tenders offers your business:

We also source opportunities for services including;

Upgrade to Discover Elite

The Ultimate Time Saver package includes:

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package includes:

Steel Work Tenders in the Public Sector

6 tips to succeed when writing your responses for steel work tenders

Plan

Attend on-site visits

Demonstrate value for money

Don’t gloss over social value

A high-quality written response

Provide evidence

Need help writing your next steel work tenders?

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Tender Writing

Tender Mentor

How can I find the right steel work tenders for my business?

Use a sector specific portal

Below are previous steel work tenders sourced on our portal:

Want to save even more time?

How to succeed with cable laying tenders

Open tendering procedure

ITT

MEAT

Experience

Site Visits

Buyers care about the quality of your writing

Tender Writing

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Tender Mentor

Where can I find cable laying tenders?

Below are past cable laying tenders we’ve sourced on our portal:

Upgrade to Discover Elite

Building material supply tenders and the impact of Brexit and COVID-19

PAS91

Framework agreements

Sustainability

Environmental Management

Government Buying Standards

Sustainable Product Offering

Waste

Giving back to the local community

Supply chain

How we can help you win building material supply tenders

Tender Mentor

Tender Improvement

Tender Ready

Tender Writing

Our Construction Tenders portal can help

A subscription with Construction Tenders offers you:

Book a Demo with Construction Tenders

Everything you need to write tenders for government flooring contracts

Framework agreements

Economic and Financial Standing

Case Studies

Timetable

Qualifications

MEAT

Social Value

How we can help win your next government flooring contracts

Tender Mentor