How To Find Painting Contracts Available Near You.

Posted on 30th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

There are plenty of painting contracts available! Here’s how to find them.

Are there many painting contracts available right now? You might have found yourself asking this question recently.

It can feel like a rocky time for businesses across the board. But tradespeople and construction companies are continuing to work throughout the second national lockdown. This includes the 112,800 painters and decorators employed across the UK, whether they’re sole traders, business owners, or self-employed sub-contractors. What does this mean for painting contracts?

Updated guidance regarding painting contracts.

Further Government guidance has been added recently on the closure of non-essential businesses. This doesn’t affect construction sites or painting and decorating merchants without showrooms. It does, however, involve public showrooms for products used in painting and glazing. It also affects painting and decorating sub-contractors who work in people’s homes.

The key points include:

Each business should assess whether they are required to close having considered the guidance and regulations.
Tradespersons may continue to visit people’s homes for their work and should follow the safer working guidance. The government has released guidance on safe practices for both outdoor construction work and work in people’s homes.
Hardware stores and builders’ merchants can remain open for the supply of paint and paintwork tools. Where these stores contain showrooms in distinct sections, these areas should be closed to the public.
Showrooms for products used in home decoration should be closed to the public.
These premises are not closed to staff or other authorised personnel needed to maintain, secure, or prepare them to reopen.

While the guidance sets stricter boundaries, it still actively encourages painting and decorating sub-contractors to operate their businesses. And there’s great value in continuing to operate and source painting contracts right now. Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, recently thanked the constructor sector directly for staying open. He stated: You are making an invaluable contribution in supporting the economy.

But what now?

This sentiment is all well and good if painting and decorating sub-contractors are able to find suitable painting contracts. And we’re here to tell you – there are painting contracts available! You just need to be smart with how you go about finding and securing opportunities when you can.

If you’re currently relying on word of mouth or local advertising, a tendering portal will open up more business opportunities. If you’ve tendered before, are you certain you’re tendering in the most effective way possible? You could, in fact, be wasting a lot of time and energy and still be missing out on opportunities. We’ll break down the best (and worst) tendering methods to assure you’re taking the correct steps towards finding painting contracts.

Why should I be tendering?

Tendering not only opens the door to a greater number of painting contracts, but it also brings more lucrative leads. For instance, SMEs and sole-traders can bid for work on large painting contracts as part of a framework agreement. Within a large contract, your work may cover a number of different areas and services.

For example, a large framework may entail painting work across a range of communal housing facilities across the UK. The contracting authority would set out the specifications of the framework and assign different ‘lots’ for different service providers. Each lot could refer to a different area of the UK, for example:

Lot 1 – London
Lot 2 – East Midlands
Lots 3 – West Midlands

You can tender for one or multiple lots, depending on where you are based and how far you’re willing to travel. The painting work required within this framework might also cover a broader range of services than smaller contracts, for example:

the complete redecoration of external surfaces and internal common parts to blocks and houses as detailed in the property list,
renewal of fascia and soffits where required (to match existing),
renewal of timber canopies where required,
pre-paint repairs,
timber window repairs/renewals,
renewal of communal floor finishes where required.

This kind of work gives you valuable experience and reliability through working with other service providers. Frameworks are therefore a great stepping stone to larger, sole supplier painting contracts to grow your business in the future.

So, how do I find available painting contracts?

Whether you are brand new to tendering for construction contracts or looking for tips to improve, we can help. Finding leads and tenders doesn’t need to be difficult. Certain methods of finding painting contracts for your business, however, can be a big waste of time and resources.

The following advice will demystify the process, and ensure you put your best foot forward on your tendering journey!

Trying to find painting contracts via CPV codes? Bad news…

Firstly, are you aware of Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) codes? Bear with us with this, we promise this is not as dry as it sounds. (Okay, maybe it is, but it’s important, so we’ll make it quick!)

All tenders in the UK are tagged via CPV codes. These are essentially 8-digit signifiers, followed by a classification number. CPV codes are used to classify the tender and make it searchable. If you’ve tendered before, you will have seen them on every tender. Any painting contracts available for tender should, in theory, be tagged with one of the following codes for painting work:

45442100-8 – Painting work
45442110-1 – Painting work of buildings
45442120-4 – Painting and protective-coating work of structures
45442180-2 – Repainting work
45442190-5 – Paint-stripping work
45442121-1 – Painting work of structures

However, painting work may also fall under several other umbrellas within the CPV code library. For instance, these CPV codes all fall under construction work:

44800000-8 – Paints, varnishes and mastics
45400000-1 – Building completion work
45440000-3 – Painting and glazing work
45442000-7 – Application work of protective coatings
44800000-8 – Paints, varnishes and mastics
45453000-7 – Overhaul and refurbishment work
45451000-3 – Decoration work

And the following codes fall under roofing work:

45261200-6 – Roof-covering and roof-painting work
45261220-2 – Roof-painting and other coating work

You get the point, there’s a lot of codes to work with for painting opportunities…

But what’s the problem with CPV codes?

In theory, if you search using these CPV codes, you’ll find all the up-to-date painting contracts available in an instant. Right? If that sounds too easy, that’s because it is…

Even if you’re searching via all of those painting related CPV codes, you’re missing countless painting contracts. Around 30% of tenders are tagged with inaccurate CPV codes.

For example, this week one of our Opportunity Trackers, for Construction Tenders, came across a large tender for Refurbishment Works. This contains potential opportunities for painting contracts, among other renovation services. However, this refurbishment tender had been mistakenly tagged with the CPV code for Installation (computers).

Obviously, this is completely unrelated – so no one searching for refurbishment contracts will see this opportunity! Countless tenders are being missed, every day, because of this flawed system. It’s not uncommon for painting contracts to slip through the cracks, despite the vast amount of painting related CPV codes.

Clearly, a procurement manager can tag a painting tender with a computer-related code before their morning coffee. Easy mistake – in fact, there is a pesky CPV code for ‘Painting software development services’ (72212327-7). But unless you’re considering a drastic career change, that’s no good for a painter and decorator…

Finding painting contracts via manual tracking? That’s better!

You might be asking, what’s manual tracking? As I said before, one of our Opportunity Trackers spotted the CPV code mix-up. That’s because they’re real people, skilled at sourcing relevant tenders for our clients and correcting inaccurate tags.

After finding the Refurbishment Tender, for example, our Opportunity Tracker posted it onto our portal, Construction Tenders. This tender is now categorised using industry-driven keywords and is easily searchable for interested suppliers. Our opportunity tracking team do this for 1000s of Construction leads on a daily basis. Easily filtering by keyword, location, budget, etc saves time and money when finding painting contracts available near you.

Construction Tenders makes finding painting contracts far more efficient than portals which rely on CPV directories. We also host construction opportunities that are exclusive to our portal. Book a free live demo to see the live opportunities.

Found painting contracts available near you? Time to prepare to tender!

Know the rules.

Make sure you have all qualifications and certifications in line with construction working guidelines. All painting contracts and decorating works in the UK are measured in accordance with certain rules, such as:

Standard Method of Measurement (SMM7)
New Rules of Measurement (NRM2)

It’s important that painting and decorating sub-contractors are able to measure painting and wallpapering works in accordance with SMM7 or NRM2. This can be via drawings either provided as ‘hard copy’ or electronic formats.

Know your rates.

Some projects may be priced from a bill of quantities (BoQ) provided by the contracting authority of a tender. The painting and decorating sub-contractor must insert their own unit rates in order to calculate the overall tender price. Sub-contractors must, therefore, be prepared to calculate their unit rates for all types of painting and decorating works.

Put together a winning bid.

Once you know your rates and have your certifications and qualifications ready to go, you’re ready to tender. At this stage of the process, we can support you every step of the way. Our blog directory offers plenty of helpful information about tendering in construction.

For further support, our Hudson Succeed team offer expert bid writing assistance. From writing support to help maximise your bidding success, to fully outsourced bid writing to save you valuable time. Our bid writers have extensive experience delivering construction tenders – with an 87% success rate.

We also offer free Tender VLE masterclasses, teaching you useful tender tips, such as how to break down a tender.

Whether you are tendering for the first time or have tendered before, we have four services tailored to your needs:

Get in touch to learn how you can succeed with us.

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders today and receive a daily construction leads bulletin straight to your inbox. The bulletin contains all the relevant construction tenders that we have uploaded that day.

This includes the following sub-sectors:

5 Benefits of eTenders Construction Businesses Should Know About

Posted on 27th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

Why are eTenders construction’s best friend?

In construction, eTenders are simply procurement processes which occur entirely online, through online documentation and communication.

In short, a buyer posts details of a construction job online and uploads any documents needed. Relevant suppliers register on an online portal, such as Construction Tenders, to express their interest and download documents. Suppliers can submit bids for the work digitally, without needing to print or post any documentation. Construction bids can be submitted either directly to the buyer via email or via an online portal.

We’ve looked at the benefits and shortfalls of eTendering in general and how to build construction contracts for tender. Now, we’d like to take a sector-specific approach and ask: What are the ramifications of using eTenders in construction bids? And how can the features of eTendering help make a construction bid as strong as possible?

eTenders: Construction’s new normal?

Firstly, you might be thinking: eTendering sounds a lot like ‘normal’ tendering, doesn’t it? You’d be right – these days, eTenders are very much the norm across all industries.

Now, the vast majority of construction tenders are carried out almost entirely online. This includes the Invitation to Tender (ITT) at the start of the process, right through to the final stages of completion. Generally, pen, paper and postage are becoming a thing of the past in tendering. Perhaps the procurement manager will print out tender documentation for their own ease of reading. You can consider formatting bids with print or branding in mind, as our design masterclass on Tender VLE explains. However, design is rarely an important factor in construction bids, where strict formats are stuck to.

Here at Hudson Succeed, the percentage of requests we get for postal submissions is less than 5%. Obviously, this is a small fraction. The majority of our tendering work is carried out online. Because of this, we’re always looking at how to make the process of eTendering more efficient at every stage.

The benefits of eTenders that construction workers should know about:

When it comes to the rise of eTenders, construction is one of the industries that benefit the most. The Government recognised the importance of eTenders in construction as part of their Construction 2025 report, back in 2013. They predicted eTenders would deliver much greater productivity by 2025 and major efficiency gains from the earlier engagement of supply chains. This has certainly come true in recent years.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of an eTender in construction can be defined by how well the procurement process is completed. Also, whether the specification and response accurately reflect the intentions of the contracting parties. All of this is a lot easier with eTenders.

So, how exactly has eTendering revolutionised construction contracts?

It allows for Dynamic Purchasing Systems and online portals.

A Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) is a supply chain list where tenders are published to specific members. A DPS is a completely electronic process.

We’ve streamlined eTendering through our 11 sector-specific tendering portals, including Construction Tenders. Opportunities on our portals can be filtered according to the needs of the user. This makes sure users only see tenders that are relevant to their specific industry and sector. Ultimately, the user avoids having to trawl through irrelevant tenders. The process for buyers is also streamlined, as they can publish competitive opportunities to actively engaged suppliers.

You can collaborate effectively with your team.

Having a secure online platform where tender documents can be distributed, amended and submitted helps streamline the procurement process further. This saves time, money and resources and allows for ongoing collaboration as you create your construction eTender.

The ‘Tasks’ function on our portal allows multiple users to work on a tender simultaneously. You can set tasks for different team members regarding different elements of the tender, such as pricing or quality. You can then view each member’s progress, whenever you need to, and when milestones are hit, you can alert participants.

It allows for clearer, more accessible contracts and terms.

Construction tenders are highly complex. There are often multiple buyers, multi-tier supply chains, and very detailed specifications to think about. With eTenders, constructions bids and proposals are a much clearer and more accessible process, for both buyers and suppliers.

A construction tender is often a very large document. For instance, we’ve talked about the trials of setting out tender rates in construction, which can be a long process. The schedule of rates (SOR) alone may contain 100+ pages, 50+ headings and countless sub-sections and pricing units. eTenders allow construction contractors to use software to properly price their works and boost the chances of effective tender management.

eTendering also allows for early engagement between buyer and supplier and encourages ongoing communication. If something needs to be clarified or negotiated, it can be done so fairly easily. This helps reduces tender cycle times and lowers transactional costs.

Easy and streamlined communication between contractor and sub-contractor is an often-overlooked blessing of eTendering compared to past methods (postage). Good communication is always essential when it comes to multiple companies collaborating effectively!

There’s less room for errors (and more time to fix them…)

Eliminating the need for pen, paper and postage also removes the need for a lot of extraneous physical processes. This, in turn, leaves a lot less room for human error.

Imagine, for instance, you’ve filled out the 100-page SOR document and made a mistake on page 56. Previously, it could have been printed and sealed inside an envelope in time for postage. Now, however, multiple team members can have online access to a digital document, 24 hours a day. This is a lot more likely to be spotted and changed before submission. The eTender can also be checked over and amended right up until the deadline for submission.

In turn, staff members who would be burdened with extraneous jobs can focus on more important tasks. For instance, knowing the ‘scope of works’ is perhaps the most important aspect of the procurement process in construction. eTenders give the buyer more time to define the contract terms, and the supplier more time to understand and negotiate them. Extra time to make the contract and tender documentation more accurate is valuable and will reduce the risk of errors.

If you need any support with construction eTenders, our Hudson Succeed team is happy to help. We can give expert writing support to maximise your success.

eTenders in construction allow for automation.

eTendering allows for automation which drastically speeds up elements of the tendering process. For instance, the automatic submission of a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ). The PAS 91 is the construction industry’s answer to the PQQ. Sites like ConstructionLine can be used to prove you are PAS 91 compliant. Essentially, once suppliers have completed one PAS 91 questionnaire, the same set of standard responses can be used again.

But is automation always the best method?

While moving online has simplified many stages of the tendering process, this comes with a major issue, seen in CPV codes. Automation doesn’t always provide the best outcome. A major downfall with eTendering and online portals is the widespread dependence on CPV codes to source tenders. Up to a third of CPV codes are used inaccurately, causing many businesses to miss relevant tenders.

To avoid this, all opportunities on Construction Tenders are sourced and tagged manually. In this area, it’s clear that humans are still beating robots!

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

This includes the following sub-sectors:

5 Tips for Quoting Accurate Tender Rates in Construction Bids

Posted on 25th November 202016th August 2022 by John Hudson

Tender Rates in Construction

Tender rates in construction are essentially the rates, or pricing, presented by the contractor at the time of tender. These rates should cover the total cost of the construction project and the mark-up price.

Sounds simple enough, but tender rates in construction can be difficult to pin down. Especially because an estimate won’t do. A quotation is required when it comes to presenting your tender rates in construction bids. This means that the price will be fixed from the time of tender. There is often little room for negotiation later down the line. So, you need to be certain you’ve presented the proper costs for the requirements of the tender.

How can we help?

At Hudson, we employ experts in all stages of tendering, from sourcing construction tenders (Discover) to writing winning bids (Succeed). And while we can create quality, compliant tender responses for you, you must prepare accurate tender rates prior to this. It’s important to have accurate tender rates ready to go when it comes to tendering in construction. Even if you wish to outsource the tender.

We understand that quoting tender rates in construction can be a burden for suppliers, and we want to help. So, we’ve created this quick guide to cover the basics of tender rates in construction. Here are 5 things to look out for, so your business can be one step closer to winning bids!

5 tips for quoting tender rates in construction!

1. Don’t miss any indirect costs.

Buyers will always consider the rates of your services as part of the evaluation process. Some tenders put more weighting on price than others, for instance, they might weight 70% on pricing and 30% quality. In this case, the focus falls on the lowest price.

Even if price is not always the main focus of a tender, the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) will always fair well.

To help you consider all costs, there are two main elements to tender rates in construction:

Direct Costs.

These are the specific costs incurred to provide the product or service on the construction site. For example:

Materials used;
Machinery and equipment used;
Salaries for staff and supervisors throughout the project;
Subcontractor invoices.

Indirect Costs.

In short, this covers everything else! These are costs that are directly related to construction, but not the specific project or construction site in particular. For example:

Project management
Training programmes for staff
Research and development
Contract supervision
Temporary buildings or premises
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
Quality control and inspection
Insurance
Repairs and maintenance

When considering tender rates in construction, it’s common to focus on direct costs and obvious, physical aspects of the site. It’s easy to neglect aspects of the pricing that aren’t immediately obvious. For instance, an indirect cost such as the salary of a project manager working on multiple projects in the office.

Make sure you take a holistic and detailed approach when considering all factors of your final rates.

2. Be realistic.

Make sure you are realistic when setting your tender rates. You may be tempted to lower your prices to ensure you’re the Most Economically Advantageous Tender. However, this isn’t good practice for several reasons, for instance:

The buyer might doubt the legitimacy and quality of your service if your bid is especially low. This could mean you lose the bid.
Once you’ve set your tender rates, you must carry out the specification as required. You may even be legally bound to the contract conditions, so you should make sure they’re realistic. You may get a chance to negotiate your price through an Invitation to Negotiate, but this isn’t always the case. In fact, most public-sector Invitations to Tender (ITTs) state that there won’t be any post-tender price alterations.
You may manage to carry out the project at a lowered price. However, you’ll then find it difficult to increase the tender rates with this buyer for any future contracts.

It’s always better to price your tender as realistically as possible and avoid running into future problems.

What do current tender rates in construction look like?

You should always ask yourself this question when ‘being realistic’ with your tender rates in construction. Consider the current landscape of the construction industry. For example, the average tender rates in construction have deflated in 2020 due to the effects of coronavirus. Global consultancy Arcadis, however, reports an optimistic outlook on the long-term future of UK tender rates in construction. They forecast tender price inflation at 5% for 2024/25. This reflects a large potential pipeline of work in the coming years, plus a reduction in the UK labour force.

In a recent letter to the construction sector, Business Secretary Alok Sharma praised the resilience of the construction industry. He touched upon adapting to the contraction of tender rates in construction, saying: The industry has had to innovate and adapt, changing the way it operates on sites, finding more efficient ways of delivering projects.

How are construction companies like yours delivering projects more efficiently? It’s worth researching and monitoring changing rates across the industry as a whole and in your specific sub-sector. This should be an ongoing process, each time you tender.

3. Check (and re-check!) the specification.

Construction tenders contain very detailed specifications. You need to read and understand it all in order to begin accurately quoting tender rates in construction bids. There’s little room for error here, as prices often can’t be revised if you spot a mistake after submission. The only choice may be to decline the contract offer if you are awarded it, which is not an ideal situation to be in.

The Invitation to Tender (ITT) may offer applicants the chance to survey the site of construction. If this is a possibility, you should always take the opportunity to survey! Gain as much information as you can to allow you to consider all aspects of pricing, as accurately as possible.

4. Don’t solely focus on driving down tender rates in construction bids.

Tender rates in construction are important, but as we mentioned earlier, pricing isn’t always the main weighting of a tender. Leave time when tendering to research the requirements and consider what wider benefits that you can provide to the project.

One way to do this is to consider the social value of your services. Social value is becoming increasingly important, and it should be part of your approach to tender rates in construction. For example, have you made environmentally conscious decisions in your supply chain? An increase in cost may allow you to dispose of materials sustainably. This environmental consideration could benefit your tender more than a cheaper, yet irresponsible, alternative would.

So, can you implement high-quality service and demonstrate social value? If this is the case, buyers could choose your bid despite it being priced higher price than your competitors’. Now, that’s a win!

5. Find out which resources are available.

You may use a bill of quantities (BoQ) or a schedule of rates (SOR) when pricing your tender. Both are used to obtain prices from contractors, depending on your procurement route.

A bill of quantities: This provides project-specific, measured quantities of the items specified in the tender documentation. It helps tenderers prepare tender rates in construction. This is appropriate in projects that have been designed in great detail, with precise quantities set out in the specification.
A schedule of rates: This is essentially a price list, setting out the rates for staff, labour and machinery that a contractor will use. This doesn’t contain specific quantities and is appropriate when the nature of the work can’t be quantified. You may need to insert your rates into the SOR, while others will have pre-filled prices. A handy feature of a SOR is that it sometimes shows the evaluation weighting against certain items. This means you can tailor your rates and aim to be more competitive on highly weighted items, and selective with others.

You could also invest in online services that help you set out tender rates in construction contracts. For instance, the Building Cost Information Service (BCIS) is a service designed to help you produce specific estimates.

Another useful resource can come from always requesting tender feedback from previous bids. Ask for feedback on how you compared to competitors when it comes to failed bids, in particular. From this information, compare your tender pricing and quality to other bidders, and adjust your rates accordingly for future bids.

Need bid-writing support?

We appreciate setting out tender rates in construction bids can be very time consuming, in and of itself. (This guide only touches on a fraction of the information available for tender rates and pricing!) And this all comes before the process of writing a fully compliant and detailed bid to put your rates in.

Our Hudson Succeed team can take the pain out of bid writing and save you a lot of valuable time. We provide writing support to help maximise your bidding success. Our dedicated team of bid writers have extensive experience delivering construction tenders – with an 87% success rate.

Whether you are tendering for the first time or have tendered before, we have four services tailored to your needs:

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

Do you want to save time when sourcing construction tenders?

Our Construction Tenders portal gives you a sector-specific service that is tailored to your business. Our opportunity trackers manually search for all the latest construction tenders, so you don’t have to. Every result you see will be relevant to the services you offer. You’ll receive updates straight to your inbox. And if you have any questions, your dedicated account manager will be on hand to answer them.

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

This includes the following sub-sectors:

Finding Construction Job Leads – What’s the Best Method?

Posted on 23rd November 202023rd March 2022 by John Hudson

Evaluating Methods of Finding Construction Job Leads for Your Business

Finding the best construction job leads for your SME, or as a sole trader, can be tricky. In an ideal world, you’d always be able to find good leads as often and as quickly as you needed. Ideally, the perfect construction job leads would find their own way to you!

In reality, tradespeople and construction SMEs often waste a lot of time searching for construction contracts in the UK. Does this sound like you? Maybe you’ve struggled to find relevant construction job leads and worried that you’re looking in the wrong place. Or are you simply waiting for leads to come to you? A surprising percentage of tradesmen (75%!) say word of mouth is their top strategy for finding construction job leads. This strategy looks a lot like waiting around and wasting time, once you know what you could be doing.

How to find construction job leads.

Here are three ways to increase the amount of construction job leads you find. We’ve evaluated each method based on how much it can help SMEs and sole traders to grow their businesses.

Get construction job leads via a tendering portal.

Searching online for construction job leads in your sector will provide you with opportunities. You might find hundreds of construction job leads this way. But, as you probably know, it’s never that simple. Very often, the construction job leads you come across don’t suit your business. Once you’ve looked at the specification, there’s a number of ways a lead might not be right. The contract’s size, budget, location, length, requirements, or sector could all be the wrong fit, for instance. Frustrating, we know.

But tendering portals make finding construction job leads that are sector-specific and relevant to your business easy. So, if you want to save time and resources that could be focused on growing your business – start tendering.

How do you tender effectively?

Access a sector-specific portal.

Construction Tenders sources public and private sector opportunities across the UK, in a range of sub-sectors. At any time, you’ll find 900+ live construction tenders in one central portal. You can rest assured that 1000+ sources across the web have been manually searched for you. Our opportunity trackers will send the relevant results straight to your inbox.

Filter by keywords.

Our unique method of manual keyword tracking allows you to search for results accurately by keywords. You can filter tenders by:
Budget
Location
Services
Sector

Access an account manager.

You will always have on-hand advice and guidance to help you find relevant construction job leads.

Access tender writing support.

We also have free tender-writing master classes or four levels of personalised tender-writing support from on-hand bid writers.

Is tendering worth it?

Absolutely. Not only do you find relevant construction job leads, but you access a wider variety of leads than other methods. Construction Tenders connects you with buyers you couldn’t connect with organically and tenders you never would have found searching yourself.

Especially important for sole traders or SMEs, tendering can secure ongoing work on large construction frameworks. For instance, a relevant roofing contract that’s part of a much larger build can be a stepping-stone for smaller traders. This experience increases the roofing company’s chances of winning larger, more rewarding projects with future construction bids.

You’ll only see new construction job leads that are relevant to you on Construction Tenders. This sets us apart from other portals which rely on inaccurate CPV codes to track opportunities. Ultimately, tendering in this way ensures the best results for your business, and helps you reclaim valuable time.

Get construction job leads via referrals.

Improving your customer service to get more referrals is an often-touted method of getting more construction job leads. How does it work?

Boost your customer service.

Go above and beyond with your customer service to secure great reviews. Show you care about your work. Ways to improve your customer service include:
Always be reliable and punctual with work and calls
Always be polite and professional with customers
Operate a tidy and organised workspace

Ask for reviews.

Always ask for reviews when a job is complete, so you’ll have testimonials to prove the value of your work. Improving your customer service will make this much more fruitful. You can request reviews on Google My Business by sending an URL to customers after a job is complete. Google also promotes local business by showing them on Google maps results, voice search, and normal searches. For instance, anyone searching for a bricklayer will see local bricklayer business pages at the top of the search results. This is a great place to procure your strongest reviews.

Incentivise referrals.

Incentivise referrals by offering rewards to those who refer you.

Are referrals worth it?

Improving your service will, in turn, generate better reviews and future referrals for your company. Nothing bad will come of improving your services and caring more about your customers. However, this is a slow-burning strategy for finding new construction job leads and depends heavily on others supporting you.

Generate construction leads via an online presence

Building your online presence is a popular method of generating construction job leads in the digital age. You can do this in the following ways:

Create a website for your business.

Make sure your construction business’ information is accessible to others at all times. Be sure to include:
Contact information;
A personal touch, i.e. images of you and your team, images with clients, if permitted.
Case studies and high-quality images of past projects that you’re proud of, including before and afters, if possible;
Testimonials from past clients;
Your credentials and accreditations.

Set up email marketing for your business.

Set up an email newsletter for customers to get the word out there about your business. You can include the following:
Reminders of your company and the work you do;
News and updates on your business;
Share tips, ideas, and trends that are related to your specialised trade – i.e. DIY projects.

Set up social media pages for your business.

Gone are the days of the yellow pages, and word of mouth simply doesn’t cut it anymore. You can instead boost your online presence through social media.
Create your own Facebook or Twitter page.
Engage with potential customers.
Network with other construction companies who are non-competitors. For example, connect with a roofing company as a bricklaying business and share your customer base.

Is online marketing worth it?

Creating an online presence for your company can be great for exposure and might score you small and relevant jobs. However, a snazzy website won’t do the legwork for securing work on large projects, frameworks or ongoing jobs. Implementing the above strategies in your company can also be time-consuming and expensive. You’re looking for construction job leads after all, not a career in digital marketing…

So, which strategy generates the best construction job leads?

Overall, referrals and online marketing are both valuable strategies, but they only go so far. They still largely depend on construction job leads finding you. Also, they don’t ensure you find the maximum number of leads possible, nor do they advance you onto bigger projects. Ultimately, this isn’t the best way to grow your company.

So, scrap waiting around for referrals, or website clicks, and don’t waste time searching for construction job leads manually. With the vastness of online results, this can essentially be akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. If you want to grow your business sustainably, rather than depending on reputation or self-marketing, tendering is the best method.

What’s the current climate for construction job leads?

Despite the recent impact of Covid-19 on the construction industry, there is a bounce-back and ongoing investment.

For instance, the government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund Forward Funding (HIF FF) offers some good news to the industry. After surpassing £1.8bn of investment in early November 2020, it will deliver another £1bn of investment in construction, country wide. These investments, delivered by Homes England, will help to deliver up to 300,000 new homes across England. It provides local authorities with funding for new infrastructure and brings new construction jobs leads to offset the pandemic’s impact.

Robert Jenrick, the Housing Secretary, described the scope of the investments:

“In order to build more homes, we need to provide the infrastructure and public services to match. This investment will help to build homes where we need them the most. It also supports existing communities by ensuring they get the new roads, schools and other public services that are needed.”

Case studies of the HIF funding scheme include:

– Cambridge City Council was allocated £227m to deliver around 8,000 homes and 20,000 new jobs over the next 20 years.

– Greater Manchester Combined Authority received approval for £51.6m to unlock the first phase of 5,557 new homes.

– Cumbria County Council was awarded £134m to build new infrastructure to unlock land on which to build 10,325 new homes.

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

If you want to start receiving construction job leads, straight to your inbox, we can help. Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders. When you sign up, you’ll receive a daily bulletin when new construction jobs are uploaded. The bulletin contains all the relevant opportunities that we have sourced that day.

We actively source tenders for the following sub-sectors:

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.

How to Find & Win Inspection Tenders

Posted on 20th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

Seeing Success with Inspection Tenders; It’s Easier Than You Think

Inspection tenders are the perfect way to secure a pipeline of work and expand your business. Thousands of businesses use tendering as their regular development strategy. This not only secures work but also helps build lasting relationships with buyers. But the world is continuing to recover from the ongoing effects of COVID. So, shouldn’t there be a decrease in the number of opportunities available?

It would be easy to think there should be a significant reduction in inspection tender opportunities. After all, the economic impact of COVID is hard to ignore. Businesses are facing mass redundancies, budget cuts, and a decrease in productivity. All of this paints quite a bleak picture of tendering for work in the current climate. You may find yourself wondering how it’s possible to secure work when it seems as though business development in the UK has come to a complete standstill.

Well, the good news is there’s really no need to worry. It may surprise you to know there has been a continued steady stream of inspection tenders. Even at the peak of lockdown inspection tenders were still coming through. The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) have even reported on this. They stated that almost half of SME construction businesses were experiencing an increase in demand as of Autumn 2020.

What does this mean for inspection tenders?

An increase for businesses within the construction sector can only mean good things for inspection tenders. Construction projects and building works involve a large volume of employees, materials and apparatus. This means inspection is arguably one of the most crucial parts of the process. Inspecting a construction project ensures it will progress in terms of health and safety, compliance and quality.

The need for routine inspection is an essential part of construction projects. Working safely and responsibly is more important than ever in a post-COVID world. But don’t worry, there shouldn’t be too much, if any, strain on your existing services. The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has plans which will introduce consistent and concise regulations for construction projects. This will ensure projects will feel comfortable to remain in line with the Government’s everchanging policies and recommendations. This includes social distancing measures which will ensure employers and employees make every effort to comply and stay safe whilst working.

Now it’s just a case of finding the inspection opportunities. As the demand for construction work increases, so will the need for independent assessors. It can certainly be said that now is the time to take your first steps in the procurement world.

How has COVID impacted this?

Unfortunately, many industries have not been so lucky in seeing this increase in opportunities. For businesses in the hospitality and events sectors, they are facing a crisis where they are often forced to change the nature of their business.

In comparison, inspection tenders haven’t really been impacted by COVID. The construction sector is recovering from the economic impact and opportunities are increasing. So, is there anything you should consider when searching for inspection tenders in the current climate?

A Digitally Focused Approach

Perhaps the most important thing to consider is that where companies are going to discover new pipelines of work. Many companies have shifted away from face to face meetings and word of mouth when securing new business. Instead, they are moving toward a digital approach, with remote working and online meetings.

For the construction sector, taking a more digitally focused approach to securing work may feel impossible. When the main part of your job is being on-site and inspecting your surroundings, is there really room to incorporate remote working?

Good communication is an essential part of inspecting a site. The ability to verbally communicate what you have witnessed is vital for compliance. This will then be relayed to the project manager and, ultimately, could affect the next steps of the project. As a part of your job, you may have to attend progress meetings. Here you can discuss any reports as an effective way of controlling potential hazards.

Converting to a digital method of communication is likely to be vital as we shift towards a post-COVID world. Businesses are being encouraged to work and keep relationships remote where possible. This not only boasts practical advantages but also environmental benefits.

So, face to face meetings are on the decrease. What better time to start expanding your business and client base through tendering for work?

What are the benefits of securing work through tendering?

It’s all well and good saying now is the perfect time to secure inspection tenders. But should we really be focusing more on this method of securing work?

A straight-forward enough question, right? And the straightforward answer is yes.

At present, it’s so important to continue business as usual to the best of your ability. With more and more people working remotely it is vital that businesses continue developing their business strategies. Tendering is the perfect opportunity to grow your business.

The advantages include:

Developing new relationships with clients,
Gaining invaluable experience with both public and private buyers
Securing a steady stream of work
Building your pipeline
Having the ability to work remotely and avoid face-to-face meetings

With that being said, it can be a daunting experience when attempting to secure inspection tenders for the first time.

Here are 5 top tips for first-time tenderers:

Think of your advantages: It can often feel as though buyers want bigger businesses with more tendering experience. However, this is not the case. Make sure you remind yourself of your business’ unique selling points and advantages over competitors.
SME’s are not at a disadvantage: similarly, if you are a smaller enterprise, this is not an automatic disadvantage. The government are currently aiming to spend £1 in every £3 with SME’s. Private buyers may also be looking to establish relationships with smaller businesses.
Build a pipeline of work- it may be tempting to delve into the tendering world and want to secure the opportunities which are in the here and now. Reactive work is on the increase but having a pipeline is vital when tendering. When one project comes to an end, make sure you have another following this. Don’t wait for the project to finish before seeking your next stream of work.
Have a checklist– there is a range of factors you need to consider when looking at tenders. Do you have the minimum financial threshold? Can you successfully deliver the work? Do you have relevant experience? Make sure you have a checklist tailored to your business. This will ultimately save you from wasting time and effort with tenders that are not right for you.
Framework agreements– if you do not have a lot of contract examples or experience, framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems (DPS) are the perfect way to build this experience. These contracts tend to be over a longer period and have multiple providers. Not only does this increase your chances of success, but it also helps build that all-important pipeline.

How do I find Inspection Tenders?

Now you know the benefits of tendering, the next stage is sourcing these tenders. Due to the large volume of inspection tenders from a variety of buyers, it will feel impossible to know where to start. Websites and platforms dedicated to tendering are the best way to go when looking for tenders. Here you will have access to a range of opportunities.

Unfortunately, not all tendering sites are created equal. Some platforms offer more perks and support than others.

Here are some things to consider when looking to discover tenders:

Don’t rely on CPV codes or algorithms
Make sure you can search by keywords, locations, and budget
The site should manually keyword tenders
It should specify in your sector
You receive daily updates so you don’t miss out on an opportunity

Luckily for you Construction Tenders provides all this and much more! Our opportunity trackers source tenders from 1000’s of sites. They upload all available tenders manually too. You don’t need to worry about CPV codes sending irrelevant tenders. You also won’t miss out on tenders due to incorrect coding. Daily alerts are sent straight to your inbox, giving you details of the newest tenders uploaded within your sector.

Our aim is to save you time and money.

How do I secure Inspection Tenders?

Once you’ve discovered your perfect tender, how do you succeed in securing a construction contract?

Our big writing division, Hudson Succeed, can help here.

We 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. Last year alone, they secured direct contract wins totalling over £300million for our clients.

Here are some examples of the services we offer:

Find Inspection Opportunities with Construction Tenders

The best way to venture into the tendering world is through booking a free live demo of Construction Tenders. Our clients benefit from access to all public and private sector opportunities. They also receive a daily bulletin straight to their inbox with all the recent tenders and construction leads which have been sourced that day. And don’t worry about CPV codes or algorithms! Our opportunity trackers keyword every opportunity manually.

We actively source tenders for the following sub-sectors:

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:

The Future of Carpentry Tenders

Posted on 16th November 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

What Will Brexit Mean for Carpentry Tenders?

Securing work through carpentry tenders is a great way to get diverse experience in a specialised trade. If your business specialises in a sub-sector of construction, you need to consider the implications of Brexit while tendering. Do you import materials from countries in the European Union (EU), or employ EU nationals? Or are you simply concerned about business prospects post-Brexit, and going forward into 2021?

Here’s a guide on what you should be doing (right now!) to secure carpentry tenders as we head towards Brexit.

When is Brexit?

You’re likely aware that Brexit is fast approaching. But when actually is it?

Currently, the UK is in a transition period until the end of the year while we negotiate new arrangements with the European Union (EU). January 1^st, 2021 is the official date that the transition period ends. This is regardless of whether we reach a trade deal with the EU. Businesses must prepare for changes as we leave the customs union and single market.

Over the past month, business secretary, Alok Sharma, has urged businesses to prepare. He advised: “Businesses must act now to ensure they are ready for the UK’s new start come January … There will be no extension to the transition period, so there is no time to waste. Businesses have a crucial role to play in ensuring a smooth transition, and we will be there to support them.”

It’s understandable to be concerned as a business owner as we head towards the uncertainties of Brexit. Not to mention we’re in the middle of a second national lockdown. But, thankfully, we have some reassuring news regarding carpentry tenders.

Is now a good time to find carpentry tenders?

As long as you’re up to date on changing regulations – yes!

Construction will stay open for business during the second national lockdown and over the threshold of Brexit into 2021. The Construction Leadership Council has advised that construction sites should remain in operation. Sites should review their social distancing measures and remind their workforce to comply with Site Operating Procedures at all times. This means new carpentry tenders will be available.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) also confirmed that training courses will continue, and test centres will remain open. Should they need to, workers can still undertake their Health, Safety and Environment assessments, for instance.

Looking beyond Brexit, the CITB also announced a detailed strategic plan to invest in and incentivise the construction industry. Going forward, the CITB will fund ‘hubs’ to train and develop new labourers. This will help relieve the immediate problem of replacing labourers who previously came from the EU.

What are the figures?

As of November 2020, the number and value of construction contracts overall are increasing. Here’s how carpentry tenders are bouncing back after the devastating closures of Spring 2020:

October 2020 saw 482 construction contracts awarded, worth £6.8 billion. This is a 10% increase from September 2020 and the highest figures since April 2020.
Construction tender opportunities in October were spread more widely across the UK in comparison to September. While a third of expenditure was in London (£2.3 billion), regions right across the nation saw large spends. For example, Scotland (£635 million), West Midlands (£534 million) and the South West (£515 million).

So, as we head into a post-Brexit 2021, it’s a promising time to seek carpentry tenders and secure business opportunities.

How do I find carpentry tenders?

To speed up the process of finding relevant carpentry tenders that can grow your business, try our Construction Tenders portal. We source construction contract opportunities on a daily basis, from thousands of buyers. We manually search for business opportunities in the public and private sector, across the UK, so you don’t have to. All you need to do is filter by relevant keywords, budgets, industry sectors and locations.

You’ll receive daily alerts when tenders are released for relevant services. Private buyers also post projects direct to our portal to source suitable suppliers from our subscribers. Book a free live demo today and see how we can help you find and secure carpentry tenders.

Will I need to adjust my business to win carpentry tenders post-Brexit?

Potentially, yes. And the sooner the better.

On January 1^st, changes will be made to the way businesses do the following:

Import and export goods
Hire workers from the EU
Provide services in EU markets.

But don’t fret. We’ve compiled the main points highlighted by the latest government advice and the latest weekly industry report from Build UK. The following points should be relevant to your business if you’re interested in carpentry tenders. You should, however, also seek personalised advice on how your business will be affected by Brexit. To do this, use the governments ‘Check, Change, Go’ tool on www.gov.uk.

You may need to reconsider the following things to meet regulations and secure future carpentry tenders.

Importing goods

Your business risks not being able to bring or receive goods or materials from EU countries if you don’t prepare. You should take the following steps to prepare for 1^st January:

Check the new rules on importing and exporting goods from the EU. For example, timber imported into the UK is currently governed by the European Timber Regulations (EUTR). From 1st January 2021, it will be governed by the UK Timber Regulations (UKTR) in England, Scotland and Wales. If your carpentry business imports timber from the EU, it will incur the responsibilities of an ‘Operator’ under the new regulations. In 2021, your company will have to undertake due diligence to show that there is ‘negligible risk’ that the timber was illegally harvested.
Get an EORI number that starts with GB to move your goods into or out of the EU. This can take up to a week to receive. It is essential for moving goods, going forward.
Check the UK Global Tariff that will apply to imported goods and decide how you will make customs declarations. Will you need to get someone to deal with customs for you?
Check the rules for reporting unfair trade practices using the UK’s new trade remedies service.

Employing workers from the EU

You risk not being able to employ workers from outside the UK if you do not take the following steps:

If you plan to recruit workers from the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, you will need to obtain a sponsor licence, which can take up to eight weeks. (This does not apply to workers from Ireland or people with pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.)
Encourage your employees to check if they need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme.
If you have workers from the EU who wish to continue living and working in the UK after 30 June 2021, advise them to apply for settled and pre‐settled status.
If you have workers who travel to the EU for work purposes, they may need to apply for a visa or work permit from 1 January.
Familiarise yourself with the new points‐based immigration system.

How can I increase my chances of securing carpentry tenders?

When tendering, it’s very important to keep up to date with changing regulations in regard to Brexit and COVID-19. Carpentry tender opportunities may be more difficult to secure in a changing climate. |t’s therefore important that you put your best foot forward with all tenders that are available and suitable for you!

A successful carpentry bid requires in-depth knowledge about tendering and procurement processes. Alongside our Construction Tenders portal, we also offer dedicated bid writing support via Hudson Succeed. The Succeed team has supported and secured construction bids for many clients in the industry. They’re on hand to help you complete carpentry tenders if you don’t have in-house the resources to do so.

There are four levels of tender writing support depending on your needs:

Tender Writing.

Send the tender specification to our bid writers. They will write the carpentry tender response and submit the bid on your behalf.

Tender Improvement.

Our bid writers will assess your previous tender responses and work with you to develop improved content.

Tender Mentor.

Our team will analyse your content and check for any errors before you submit your tender response.

Tender Ready.

The 4-week programme consists of creating and branding your corporate literature and helping you to identify opportunities.

Get in touch with Construction Tenders

Book a free live demo of Construction Tenders today. Clients receive a daily bulletin straight to their 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.

What Does Tendering Mean to the Construction Sector?

Posted on 17th August 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

What is tendering in construction?

Tendering is a vital business development strategy for most construction firms. Why? Because tendering is an effective way of securing new contracts from buyers you may not have had access previously to or even be aware of.

So, what is tendering? As in all industries, tendering is an approach that is ultimately deemed to be the fairest way of procuring works, goods and services. The tendering process, however, can vary slightly depending on your industry sector. It is normally a formal process, aimed at procuring the most economically advantageous option.

In order to secure the work, businesses have to demonstrate why they are the most appropriate supplier for the construction contract. You must answer the buyer’s specification and evidence how you will meet the criteria of the contract.

What is the process?

Pre-qualifying stages

Initially, buyers may request that suppliers complete and submit a PAS-91. This method of pre-qualifying suppliers is becoming increasingly popular in the construction sector. It was developed by the British Standards Institute to save suppliers time filling out multiple types of PQQs.

In a nutshell, the PAS-91 takes the same ‘what have you done’ approach as the PQQ. The main purpose is to ensure that suppliers who bid for the contract, have the capability to deliver the services/goods if successful.

Requests

Depending on the contract, the buyer can ask for this information by publishing various different requests. For example, buyers can publish:

An RFQ (request for quote)
An RFP (request for proposal)
or an RFI (request for information) and more besides.

If buyers require more than just a quote, they will divide their evaluation weighting into pricing and quality. For example, the buyer may mark the tender responses based on 60% price and a 40% quality. We have also seen this the other way around in a variety of different ratios.

When quality is required, this means that the buyer is assessing your written responses to their questions. They may also request to see three previous, relevant, contract examples and potentially turnover evidence in the form of accounts.

Evaluation

Once you have completed the tender and submitted your bid, the buyer will then evaluate the submissions against the specification.

The highest-scoring supplier will be awarded the contract and the work will commence on the contract start date.

Why do businesses tender for work?

Securing contracts through tendering is a proactive approach to your business development strategy. When asking yourself, ‘what is tendering in construction?’ the answer is simply, being practical about growing your business.

It’s great when you get inbound leads through marketing or word-of-mouth. However, to really grow your business sustainably, you need to invest in self-generation.

Tendering opens up a new world of possibilities. If you’re a smaller business, relying on word-of-mouth, imagine the difference that securing a construction contract with the council could make to your pipeline of work. You can secure long-term, 10+ year contracts with local authorities and know that the work is guaranteed for the future.

As well as this, the Prompt Payment Code means that you are guaranteed to be paid on time. All too often we hear of businesses who have been caught in difficult situations when clients miss payments. The Prompt Payment Code means that government authorities have 30 days to pay invoices.

What if you’re an SME?

If you’re an SME business and you’re asking yourself ‘what is tendering in construction?’ you can think of it as a way of opening doors.

We have been supporting businesses with their tendering efforts for almost two decades. In this time, we have realised that SMEs are often under the impression that they are too small to tender.

Under this impression, you could potentially be losing out on multiple opportunities for business growth.

In terms of government construction contracts, the UK government has a target to spend every £1 in £3 with SMEs. This means that public sector buyers want to award contracts to SMEs in order to meet this target.

Of course, there will be contracts that are simply too big for SME businesses to deliver. However, for businesses that are new to tendering, we always recommend starting small and working your way up. It is likely that with smaller contracts, you won’t be competing against the “big players”. They will be bidding for the larger projects. By building a portfolio of contracts, you are preparing your business for winning big construction bids in the future.

Where do I find tendering opportunities in construction?

By simply Googling ‘Construction Tenders’ you will be confronted with a plethora of platforms who will source these opportunities.

However, if you’re looking to save time when sourcing these tenders, you should be aware of issues with CPV codes.

CPV codes (or common procurement vocabulary) are how buyers categorise their tenders. In theory, each industry has its own code and buyers simply select the service with the correct code when publishing a tendering opportunity.

However, when we conducted research, we found that a third of tenders were tagged with incorrect codes. The problem is that these opportunity tracking platforms rely on algorithms to collect their data and the algorithms track CPV codes.

That’s why our Construction Tenders platform is different. We don’t rely on codes or algorithms to source our tenders. We have a dedicated team of Opportunity Trackers who manually search thousands of sources, daily. They read the buyer’s requirements and tag each tender with industry-driven keywords.

What does this mean for you?

When signing up to Construction Tenders, you will simply be able to enter the keywords that represent your services and instantly find construction leads. The tenders you see will be relevant to your service offering and ultimately, this will save countless hours, searching through hundreds of irrelevant contracts.

Below are previous construction tenders sourced on our portal:

Provision of Scaffolding to Weetwood, Wooler

Advance Northumberland Limited- North East- Budget: Undisclosed

Minor Works Framework Agreement Daresbury Laboratory & UK Astronomy Technology Centre

UK Shared Business Services Limited- South West- Budget: £9,500,000

Mechanical Upgrade Works at Ballyheada N.S.

Ballyheada National School- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Freemans Park B Block Campus Mechanical Works

Leicester College- East Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

Flat Roof Replacement & Parapet Repairs at Clacton Police Station

7 Forces Procurement- Eastern- Budget: £380,000

We source tenders for services including;

Book a free live demo of the portal to see the current opportunities and see how the system can help your business.

How do I win?

When you find the perfect contract, it’s easy to get excited and imagine winning the tender. Then, you look at the requirements and see that the buyer has asked for quality responses totalling 10,000+ words. How will you complete this to a high-standard whilst delivering your current contracts?

That’s why we developed our sister company, Hudson Succeed. This is our bid writing division. Our Bid Writers have vast experience supporting construction businesses with their tendering efforts. The team proudly holds an 87% bid success rate and they are trusted by over 700 businesses, globally.

Get in touch with the team for a free consultation. Our consultants will be happy to discuss your current tendering strategy or how to get started with your first bid. Call 0203 051 2217 or email hi@tenderconsultants.co.uk.

Shovel-ready projects & the £1.3 billion investment

Posted on 11th August 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

Shovel-ready projects receive a £900 million investment

Shovel-ready projects will account for over £900 million of the Government’s £1.3 billion investment in homes, infrastructure and jobs. £360 million will be used to build 26,000 new homes. Overall, the funds are predicted to deliver up to 45,000 homes and create up to 85,000 jobs. The work will also help to upgrade skills and infrastructure, contributing to building a greener economic recovery.

What is it?

The Housing Secretary, Rt Hon Robert Jenrick, announced the nearly £1.3 billion investment earlier this month (August). The project will see the build and implementation of vital infrastructure across England.

Over 300 projects throughout the country have been told that they will be receiving a share of the £900 million. This is being referred to as the ‘Getting Building Fund’. The fund was announced by the Prime Minister in June as the COVID recovery plans stepped into action.

The Housing Secretary said:

“As we get Britain building, we are also laying the foundations for a green economic recovery by investing in vital infrastructure for local communities, creating jobs and building environmentally-friendly homes with a huge £1.3 billion investment announced today.

This Government is determined to level up all parts of the country and this funding will not only give a much-needed boost to our economic recovery, it will help build the good quality, affordable homes the country needs.”

What is the goal of the projects?

Not only focussed around infrastructure, the shovel-ready projects are also in aid of boosting the economy as we recover from the pandemic. Whilst creating around 85,000 jobs, the projects offer a chance to boost skills in the construction industry.

Creating a greener England is also one of the main aims of the work. It is expected that the new infrastructure will reduce around 65 million kilograms of CO2 emissions across the country.

The successful projects

Some of the 300 successful shovel-ready projects include;

Mayfield Park in Greater Manchester. They were granted £23 million for the first phase for the development of commercial space. The project is predicted to open 3,200 jobs and attract around 1 million visitors per year.
The National Brownfield Land Institute was granted £14.88 million. The project aims to create a leader in sustainable construction to drive levelling up across the region.
Support for a high-speed railway station in Thanet, Kent. The project was funded £12 million and aims to improve transport infrastructure in the area, as well as creating 800 jobs.
A total of 21 projects in the North East have been granted a combined £64 million. These projects include the Gateshead Quays convention centre and the development of a new business park. These schemes are expected to create over 4,200 jobs and safeguard a further 3,500.

In total, the successful shovel-ready projects are expected to deliver;

85,000 jobs;
1 million sqm of commercial space;
45,000 homes;
Almost 1 million sqm of the public realm or green space (improved or created).

Developing 26,000 new homes

The government has also confirmed a further £360 million investment in Mayoral Combined Authority areas. This investment will help to develop 26,000 homes, whilst protecting greenfield sites.

Additionally, another £8million of funding has been confirmed for brownfield sites. The funding will speed up the build of new homes on these sites. These leaves £40million of funding remaining, for which the Government is now inviting ambitious bids from Mayoral Combined Authorities.

Green Homes grant scheme & required accreditations

The new Green Homes grant scheme will see the government offer £2billion of funding. This will fund up to two-thirds of the cost of home improvements for over 600,000 homes.

However, please be aware that tradespeople must register for a TrustMark accreditation in order to take part in the scheme.

The Business and Energy Secretary, Rt Hon Alok Sharma said:

“Green home improvements will save people money on their energy bills, help to cut carbon emissions, and create new work for many thousands of builders, plumbers and other tradespeople.

Our TrustMark scheme will guarantee that building work is completed to a high standard by accredited tradespeople, ensuring consumers are fully protected.”

Households on low incomes can receive vouchers which will cover 100% of the cost of their home improvements. This support carries a maximum of £10,000.

Are you looking for new construction projects?

Does your business need to secure new construction contracts in the UK? We know that the opportunity tracking process can be time-consuming. There are numerous tendering portals available to you that can make the process more efficient. However, when we conducted research, we found that over a third of the opportunities on these portals were tagged with incorrect CPV codes.

In a nutshell, CPV (common procurement vocabulary) is how the algorithms on these portals find and identify tenders. The problem is that buyers don’t always know which CPV codes to use when publishing tendering opportunities.

We decided to eradicate this process altogether. When we developed Construction Tenders, we decided not to rely on CPV or to leave decisions at the mercy of computers. Our team of Opportunity Trackers manually searches thousands of sources every day. They identify new opportunities in the construction sector and upload them to one central system. They then tag the tenders with industry-specific keywords. This means that all the tenders you see are relevant to your business. No more searching and scrolling through endless, irrelevant contracts.

But don’t just take our word for it. Book a free live demo and trial the system for yourself. The demo will allow you to access the system, see the current opportunities and understand how the portal can help your business.

We source tenders for services including;

Refurbishment Tenders

Do you need bid writing support for a construction tender?

We understand how important the process of tendering is to the construction industry. Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, houses our five dedicated bid writing services. The Succeed team has vast experience with writing and winning construction bids. They proudly hold an 87% bid success rate and are trusted by over 700 businesses globally.

Each service was created to ensure that the team can support businesses of varying sizes with different levels of tendering experience.

For example, the Tender Ready package was designed to support those who are new to tendering. During the service, our bid writers will work with you to develop the corporate literature you will need when you begin tendering for work. Not only that, but our Bid Designers will also ensure that your documents are professionally branded and stand out from your competition. They will then help you to identify the right tendering opportunities for your business. Then, they will offer to write your first bid on your behalf or guide you through two.

Tender Writing is the perfect ad-hoc solution if you require support with a one-off bid. The team will write your tender responses, attach the required documents and then submit the bid on your behalf. They will work with you to respond to any technical questions to ensure that your bid showcases your business in the best light.

Tender Improvement was developed to help you see success from your tendering efforts. During this service, our consultants will assess your previous tender responses and identify any areas of improvement. They will also assess your corporate literature and either create or re-develop any necessary documents. Once this is complete, the team can either write your next bid or guide you through two.

Further support

For further support or more information about how we can help your construction business grow with a steady supply of construction leads please get in touch. Our team will be happy to take you on a tour through our Construction Tenders portal or discuss your tendering strategy in more detail.

The Construction Talent Retention Scheme – Protecting workers in Construction

Posted on 9th July 202021st March 2022 by John Hudson

The Construction Talent Retention Scheme – Everything you need to know

The Construction Talent Retention Scheme was announced by Chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak. The aim of the scheme is to protect workers in the construction industry as the UK begins to rebuild itself and emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Co-Chair of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), Andy Mitchell said: “This is a great example of what we can achieve when we work collaboratively with government and we look forward to continuing in this spirit when the proposals and recommendations of our broader Roadmap to Recovery are published. In the meantime, we will work with our members and industry stakeholders to encourage the scheme’s use and success.”

How will the scheme work?

The Construction Talent Retention Scheme is due to launch, formally, later this month. The scheme will be in the form of an online portal that will work to protect those who work in the construction industry. The portal will do this in the following ways;

Advertising vacancies

Companies can use the portal to advertise open vacancies and employ workers that may be at risk of redundancy.

Help construction projects

The portal will help to place at-risk workers on construction projects to prevent a loss of talent in the sector.

Inter-trading with talent

The Construction Talent Retention Scheme system will also allow businesses to “loan” workers to other companies who can utilise their skills.

Transfer workers into construction

The system will aim to help workers from different industries to transfer to the construction sector. This means that workers who have lost jobs, or who are at risk of being made redundant, will have a route into a new career.

The foundations

The foundations of the Construction Talent Retention Scheme are based on a tried and tested model. A similar scheme has been used previously to safeguard workers in the aerospace and automotive industries.

The Chief Executive for the Association for Consultancy and Engineering, Hannah Vickers said: “This is a proven solution with a strong track-record in other sectors, cross-industry support and pledges from our leading employers. It is vital we keep the skills in our sector to avoid a talent drain and is the only way we will be able to ramp-up activity to lead the recovery of the wider economy and deliver growth through new buildings and infrastructure.”

Funding for the scheme has been secured until the end of the financial year. The platform will be free for any organisation to use.

Finding construction contracts

Are you currently looking for construction contracts in your field? Our Construction Tenders portal takes the headache out of the sourcing process.

Finding new contract opportunities is a full-time job. We know because we have a dedicated team who do this daily to ensure your business never misses a construction lead.

Below are previous construction tenders sourced on our portal:

West Thames College – M & E Services Tender

West Thames College- London- Budget: Undisclosed

UPVC Guttering, Soffits, Fascias and Accessories

Luton Council- Eastern- Budget: Undisclosed

Replacement or Repair of Existing Over Door Canopies

Raven Housing Trust Limited- South East- Budget: Undisclosed

Quick Quote – Ronaldsway Airport Fire Station Slipway Refurbishment

Isle of Man Government- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Quick Quote – Castletown Harbour – Light Column Replacement

Isle of Man Government- International- Budget: Undisclosed

Book a free live demo to tour the system and see how the portal can help your construction business.

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2. Be realistic.

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3. Check (and re-check!) the specification.

4. Don’t solely focus on driving down tender rates in construction bids.

5. Find out which resources are available.

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Do you want to save time when sourcing construction tenders?

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