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Structural Engineering Consultancy Tenders: 5 Things to Include

Posted on by John Hudson

Structural engineering consultancy tenders and how to write them

Structural engineering consultancy tenders can have advantages for your business. If tendering within the public sector, it can result in guaranteed pay, securing a pipeline of work for your business.

Structural engineering consultancy tenders may be looking to fulfil contracts such as:

  • Monitoring the quality of construction from a structural perspective.
  • Reviewing designed portions of the structure for compliance with the assigned parameters.
  • Co-ordinating and reviewing design elements with other members of the design team. This could include external stakeholders to obtain necessary licences and approvals relating to the works.
  • Reviewing design and calculations where appropriate.
  • Co-ordinating site investigation works as required.

The typical tendering procedure

PQQ

The standard criteria for selection within structural engineering consultancy tenders starts off as a PQQ. A PQQ is a pre-qualification questionnaire where you will have to detail your business’s:

  • Company information.
  • Confirmation of insurance.
  • Proof of financial stability and availability to undertake the project.
  • Health and Safety
  • Environmental policy.
  • Equal opportunities and diversity policy.

ITT

If your business is successful, you will then be sent an invitation to tender (ITT). This will include your quality and price response.

5 things to include in your structural engineering consultancy tenders

1. Overall project cost and fees

Buyers will always consider the rates of your services as part of the evaluation process. Each tender is different depending on the buyer’s needs. This means some tenders put more weighting on price over quality.

Pricing describes the cost of the contract, so you should submit your best price for the project. However, don’t try and outprice yourself or undercut your competitors by being the cheapest. It’s not profitable to submit a low price and then go significantly over budget.

Even if the price is not the main focus of a tender, public sector organisations will award the contract to the MEAT. The MEAT is the most economically advantageous tender. This is when your response is evaluated on other aspects than just price. It’s important to note that the cheapest bid does not win. Buyers may assess the MEAT by looking at the following examples:

  • Quality
  • Innovation
  • Technical ability
  • Environmental benefits
  • Accessibility
  • Ability to deliver on time

2. Project methodology and management

Within your ITT, you will need to provide the details of your prosed structure of the management and resources. This must include the supervision and demonstrate your ability to provide suitable and sufficient resources for a successful project. You must demonstrate management structures, lines of authority, reporting and your depth capacity to undertake the project.

Within structural engineering consultancy tenders, a good way to do this is via the RIBA stages. RIBA stands for the Royal Institute of British Architecture. Their Plan of Work contains the definitive model for the design and construction process of buildings. It has seven stages:

0. Strategic definition

1. Preparation and Briefing

2. Concept Design

3. Spatial Coordination

4. Technical Design

5. Manufacturing and Construction

6. Handover

7. Use

3. Risk assessment

A risk assessment is usually included within an ITT. It needs to include an understanding of specific challenges and risks of the project. It could go hand in hand with your businesses health and safety policies. As with any construction project, a buyer wants to optimise the health and safety of their staff and customers.

You must be in compliance with the current legislations and provide evidence. Examples of what policies that you could have in place for structural engineering consultancy tenders are:

  1. RIDDOR
  2. CHAS
  3. ISO 9001; 14001; 45001
  4. BS5750
  5. Constructionline
  6. SSIP

4. Past case studies

Construction contracts will require you to evidence past case studies of completed works of similar scope. Buyers want to see how successful you have been in the past when fulfilling similar contracts. You want to make sure that these case studies are tailored to projects of similar complexity.

You’ll likely be asked to detail 3 examples that have been completed within the last five years. Each example should be tailored, fitting and compelling with the specification. Testimonials from satisfied clients always reflect well on you. Depending on the buyer, you may have to provide their contact information so they can check you’re telling the truth.

Make sure your case studies are:

  1. Thorough
  2. Detailed
  3. Well-developed
  4. Backed up with evidence
  5. Showcase your company’s abilities
  6. Include how you overcame unexpected challenges and how you adapted, showing flexibility and problem-solving abilities.

5. CV’s

Structural engineering consultancy tenders will often ask for CVs of the employees who will work on the contract. You may also need to provide the details of any subcontractors you will be using too. The CVs must demonstrate that the staff are capable of providing a high quality of service. They will need to include their experience, ability and suitability and any relevant qualifications.

You could include a smart but friendly photo of each member on their CVs against a neutral background. This will allow buyers to put faces to names and is a nice added touch. CVs should be relevant, focused and as concise as possible while still being thorough.

Need assistance?

If writing isn’t your strong suit, not to worry – our sister company, Hudson Succeed, can help. They have an 87% success rate and over 60 years of collective bid writing experience.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your own tender response and want someone to double-check for errors, then Tender Mentor is for you. One of our Bid Writers will look over it and proofread for any grammatical or spelling mistakes. They’ll check it’s in line with the specification before you submit the bid.

Tender Writing

Have you found the perfect tender for your business, but don’t know where to start? Why don’t you send it our way? Our Bid Team will take care of it all for you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll let you know what they need from you and even submit it on your behalf!

Tender Improvement

If you’ve already been tendering for work, but aren’t seeing success, our Tender Improvement programme can help. Our Bid Writers will look over your supporting documents and past submissions. They’ll then give you feedback and guidance on how to improve.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready programme is designed for those who have never tendered before. This programme works with you to ensure you have everything in place to tender successfully. It includes a 12-month subscription to a sector-specific portal of your choice.

Where can I find structural engineering consultancy tenders?

Not everyone has the time to scour hundreds of websites a day trying to find the right tendering opportunity.

Luckily for you, our Construction Tenders portal can help. We don’t rely on CPV codes that can result in missed opportunities as they’re often used incorrectly. Our Opportunity Trackers manually trawl and source construction leads from thousands of websites daily. You are able to filter the results via location, budget, keyword and more. This saves you hours, allowing you to focus on the important things.

Below are some past structural engineering consultancy tenders we have sourced on our portal:

Tralee Northern Relief Road Structural Engineering Consultancy Services

Kerry County Council- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Civil & Structural Engineering Consultancy Services for Carpark Works at GRETB Adult and Further Education and Training Centre, Athenry, Co. Galway

Galway Roscommon Education & Training Board- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Civil and Structural Engineering Consultancy and Ancillary Certifier Services for Social Housing projects in Co. Kildare

Cluid Housing Association- International- Budget: Undisclosed

GBC DAB Structural Engineering Consultancy Services

SE Shared Services- South East- Budget: £120,000

St. Paul’s School – Civil & Structural Engineering Consultancy Services-Single Storey Extension at Beech Hill, Montenotte, Cork T23 P529.

St. Paul’s School (Montenotte) – International- Budget: Undisclosed

A subscription to Construction Tenders can offer your business:

  • Access to all unique, private and public sector structural engineering opportunities from across the UK.
  • Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our Bid Writing division.
  • An on-hand Account Manager to answer any of your structural engineering tender questions and queries.
  • A daily email bulletin sent straight to your inbox when new structural engineering consultancy tenders are uploaded.

Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders today.

We actively source tenders for the following sub-sectors:

Upgrade to Discover Elite

Discover Elite can save you even more time when searching for structural engineering consultancy tenders. Our two upgraded packages can help you identify tenders, even when you’re busy.

The Ultimate Time Saver and Become a Pre-Bid Master packages can help improve your competitor awareness. You’ll have a dedicated Account Manager that will consider whether tendering opportunities are right for your business. This will help to improve your bid success rate, by going after the right contracts.

The Ultimate Time Saver package can offer your business:

  • An on-hand dedicated Account Manager and weekly phone calls to discuss viable tendering opportunities.
  • A tender breakdown of a maximum of five bids per month.
  • Annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This is a great option if your business overlaps two industries such as Construction and Logistics, for example.
  • Buyer portal management including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid
  • Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package includes:

  • All of the above.
  • A maximum of 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.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you grow your business with Construction Tenders.

How Easy is it to Secure Quantity Surveying Tenders?

Posted on by John Hudson

Quantity surveying tenders – the importance of securing a pipeline

Quantity surveying tenders are a great way to secure new business opportunities and contacts. Making sure that structures meet both quality, compliance and legal standards is an essential part of the construction process. Now more than ever there is a need for cost control and estimation within the construction sector.

But how easy is it to access these new opportunities? What is the importance of securing a pipeline? In order to know more about this, it would make sense to start with the basics.

What is a quantity surveying tender?

The most obvious question to start with is “what is a quantity surveying tender”. In a nutshell, tendering is one of the best ways to win new construction contracts and secure a pipeline of work. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find new contacts and keep current clients interested. Quantity surveying tenders offer a convenient solution to this common problem.

A tender is an invitation to submit a bid in an attempt to be part of a project. Buyers often have projects to complete where they need to outsource a quantity surveying role. Perhaps they don’t have the capacity to complete this in-house or have had to cut costs. Either way, there is a role which needs to be filled. Quantity surveying tenders are an effective way to go about this.

There is often a document released which details the needs of the buyer from the supplier.

These details can include:

  • Scope of Work– this contains the work required from the supplier and which areas they need to specialise in. It can also contain some background information about the buyer and their goals for the project.
  • Budget– an overview of what the buyer expects to spend on your services.
  • Financial Threshold– a guidance figure for what the supplier’s minimum turnover should be.
  • Location– where the project is located.
  • Timescales– the duration of the project and how long the supplier will be required. This can also include any potential extensions to the project.
  • Evaluative Methods– often shown as price vs quality in the form of a percentage. This will give an idea as to how much the buyer values cost vs detailed response and evidence of experience.
  • Selection Questionnaire– this provides an idea of the supplier’s level of experience, capacity and financial standing. There can also be additional quality/technical questions added onto this where a more substantial answer is needed. Case study examples of previous work may also be needed.
  • Pricing Schedule– enables buyers to assess the supplier’s idea of cost efficiency and where their money will be spent.
  • Submission Guidance– where to submit these documents and who to contact for advice.
  • Terms and Conditions– any legal assurances and contracts the buyer and supplier will need to have in place.

From here, suppliers will be expected to provide the information required for the buyer to assess their suitability. Buyers can then evaluate all the bids they have received and decide on a preferred supplier.

Why should I tender for work?

There are so many benefits to tendering, it’s hard to know where to start. So, here are our top 3 benefits of tendering for work:

  1. New Business Contacts

Arguably, the biggest reason why businesses turn to tendering is to secure new contracts. As every business owner will know, the key to a successful business is building relationships. Similarly, as a quantity surveyor, liaising with clients to identify their needs will be second nature. Without having access to these vital connections, you may not get a steady stream of work. This can ultimately result in your organisation’s decline.

We are living in a world where face to face meetings and word of mouth business is on the decrease. So, how are we, as businesses, expected to grow and secure new contracts?

Quantity surveying tenders pose an ideal solution. Having access to tenders can help build relationships with new clients. Even better, these clients are likely people who you would otherwise not have had access to. From here, there is an opportunity for inter-trading and collaborations. This will ultimately create an even more mutually beneficial relationship between yourself, as the supplier, and the buyer.

Continuing from this, many quantity surveying tenders call for a certain level of experience and case studies. Once you have worked with one buyer, and then have access to their contacts, the process will become significantly easier. From here you will have ample case studies and contract examples. This will result in a level of ease when securing contracts to build your pipeline of work.

  1. A Fair Process

The idea of a fair process is perhaps a more underrated benefit of tendering for work. Public sector tendering is well known for its structured process. This in itself has a range of benefits. Having a contract with terms and conditions, and a clear scope of work makes the process a lot easier for suppliers. In order to release a tender, buyers have to do a lot of prior research. Start and end dates need to be clarified, budgets need to be signed off etc… Automatically suppliers will know if they are suitable for the work.

Public sector buyers, and private buyers with higher budgets, are required by law to issue an “invitation to tender“. This is because tendering creates a fairer process. Buyers have to be clear about their value of price vs quality. There is no chance of a buyer spending their budget inappropriately. Similarly, there is a decreased risk of nepotism when awarding contracts. The evaluation criteria ensures the most suitable business will secure the contract. Public sector buyers have to be even more transparent as they are dealing with tax-payers funding. Ultimately the tendering process has to be fair and transparent as this information will be released to the public.

  1. Control Over Your Pipeline

Now onto the all-important pipeline. Tendering allows you to filter projects based on your preferences. Often when businesses rely on word of mouth, you can end up accepting contracts that aren’t suitable for your business. This can be out of fear there won’t be another opportunity that comes up. It can also be to keep a strong relationship with that business. With tendering this isn’t a concern. You will find a whole range of quantity surveying tenders at your disposal.

It’s important to note we aren’t suggesting you will win every contract you bid for. However, by having more choice you can effectively build a pipeline of work.

What we mean by “a pipeline of work” is that you will have a steady stream of work coming in. It may be very tempting to go for all the contracts which will have immediate benefits. Perhaps contracts with shorter durations where you will receive the money relatively soon seem more appealing. However, it is vital you know when one contract finishes, you have another waiting in the pipeline.

Here are some things to consider when building your pipeline:

  • Consider smaller contracts for interim periods.
  • Set time aside to review your pipeline.
  • Use Prior Information Notices (PIN) to get an idea of what is going to be released.
  • Plan ahead for proposals. It’s never a good idea to submit a rushed bid.
  • Hold planning meetings with your team to discuss your pipeline.
  • Establish relationships with buyers. This can give you an advantage through knowing their bidding cycle and potential future projects.

Did you know? – a top tip for SME’s 

Tendering for work as a smaller business can sometimes feel daunting. It may seem as though contracting authorities are only interested in big suppliers with years of contract examples. However, this is certainly not the case. The UK government has a target to help SME’s. Their target is to spend £1 in every £3 on SME businesses. This means that public sector buyers are actively seeking out smaller organisations to work and establish relationships with. Don’t price yourself out of the public sector market!

Where can I find quantity surveying tenders?

The next logical question to ask is “where can I find tenders?”. Like most businesses, you probably don’t have the time to go through 1000+ sites every day. It can be hard work knowing where to find quantity surveying tenders. Well, luckily for you we have a solution.

Construction Tenders is an opportunity tracking platform. We source all the tenders from across the UK and upload them in one central place.

A subscription with Construction Tenders offers you:

  • A team of opportunity trackers sourcing quantity surveying tenders from 1000’s of sites.
  • Access to all private and public sector construction bids across the UK.
  • The ability to filter opportunities by keyword, budget, location etc…
  • A daily email alert to let you know about the latest quantity surveying tenders.
  • No reliance on CPV codes or algorithms. Our team manually upload each tender, making sure you have access to 100% of quantity surveying tenders.
  • Discounted support from Hudson Succeed, our bid writing division.
  • 20 minutes of free consultancy every month with our bid experts.

How can I secure quantity surveying tenders?

Once you’ve found the perfect quantity surveying tender, how can you secure it?

Look no further than Hudson Succeed. Our team hold an 87% bid success rate. Last year alone, they secured direct contract wins totalling over £300million for our clients. They thrive in creating bespoke packages to suit your business needs.

Here are some examples of the services they offer:

Book a Demo with Construction Tenders

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

We actively source construction leads and tenders for the following sub-sectors:

Contact us today to find out more about how Construction Tenders can help your business.