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Straight answers, no sales pitch
Practical guides on the things that decide whether a construction job makes money: finding work you can win, pricing it properly, buying materials well, checking who you engage, and keeping the record that settles the argument. Everything here is free to read and most of it points at tools that are free to use.
Winning UK construction tenders
3 articles · read the full guide →
The two official UK tender sources, what each actually carries, and why searching only one means missing most of the work a small firm can realistically win.
What a CPV code is, why buyers describe identical work in different words, and how filtering by category finds contracts a keyword search misses.
Sub-threshold contracts, why visibility beats capability as the real barrier, and the practical sequence for a smaller firm bidding public work for the first time.
Construction estimating
2 articles · read the full guide →
What a BOQ contains, why tenders are issued with one, how to read the units, and the traps that cost money — provisional sums, prelims and unstated inclusions.
What each rate basis includes, why conflating them is one of the commonest estimating errors, and how to check which one a bill expects before you price it.
Materials & procurement
1 article · read the full guide →
What MOT Type 1 sub-base is, how it differs from Type 3 and recycled fill, how much you need per square metre, and why delivered prices vary so much.
Engaging subcontractors
1 article · read the full guide →
What the Construction Industry Scheme requires of contractors, why verification is the step that catches people out, and how deductions and the CIS300 work.
About these guides
Is any of this gated behind a signup?
No. Every guide is free to read and the tools they point at — the live tender feed, the BOQ pricer, the subcontractor solvency check and supplier matching — are free to use with no account.
Who writes these?
Supreme Building Services, a UK construction company, registered number 10095179. The guides describe how we run our own jobs and what the public data actually supports, rather than restating marketing copy.
Where do the figures come from?
Tender and company data comes from official UK open sources — Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, Companies House and The Gazette. Where a number is an industry norm rather than something we measured, it is described as typical rather than stated as fact.
Something here you want answered properly?
Ask a specific question about a job, a bill or a tender and you get a specific answer — including when the answer is that we are not the right firm for it.
Or just use the tools
Live UK tender feed, BOQ pricer, subcontractor solvency check and supplier matching. Free, no account.