What's actually in a tender submission, and where the risk sits for you

A tender isn't just a price on a page. By the time you submit, you've pulled together a programme, a set of assumptions about what's included and what isn't, a breakdown the client's QS can pick apart line by line, and a number you're prepared to stand behind if you win the job. Miss any of that and you're either exposed once the contract's signed, or you look unprepared next to the other bids on the table.

What actually goes into it

Underneath the headline figure sits a priced breakdown, usually against a bill of quantities or your own measured takeoff, plus preliminaries, programme, method statement where it's asked for, and your exclusions and assumptions written down clearly. That last part matters more than most contractors give it credit for. What you've excluded in writing is what protects you later when the client says "but I thought that was included."

Where the risk actually sits

The risk in a tender rarely sits in the big obvious items. It sits in the small ones nobody double-checked: a quantity carried over from a similar job rather than measured off this one, a rate that's a year out of date, an item on the drawings that never made it into the price at all. Any one of those turns a job you won into a job you're losing money on by week three.

The other place risk sits is time. A tender priced properly needs the drawings measured, quantities checked against the bill if there is one, and rates applied that reflect current UK costs, not last year's job. Do that under pressure the night before the deadline and something gets skipped.

Where we fit in

We take the measuring and pricing off your hands. Send us the drawings, plans or bill of quantities you've been given, and we measure the job to NRM2 and price it on current UK rates. You get a full priced breakdown back before your bid is due, so what goes into your submission is built on quantities that were actually checked, not assumed.

Send your drawings before the next tender lands, and get a submission built on numbers you can actually stand behind.

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