{"id":8080,"date":"2025-09-26T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T07:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/?p=8080"},"modified":"2025-09-26T07:47:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T07:47:00","slug":"contractors-hike-bid-tender-margins-as-risk-fears-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/contractors-hike-bid-tender-margins-as-risk-fears-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractors hike bid tender margins as risk fears grow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contractors are cranking up overhead and profit margins in bids as they take an increasingly cautious stance on risk and inflation.<\/p>\n

According to the latest market survey from consultant Gleeds contractors are continuing to retreat from high risk, with 57% admitting they\u2019ve reduced appetite for risk this quarter.<\/p>\n

Around three-quarters revealed that had walked away from tenders \u2013 up from two-thirds a year ago.<\/p>\n

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Pre-construction periods are also dragging out, with deals that once took 12\u201318 months now stretching beyond two years in many regions.<\/p>\n

Gleeds warns the combination of jittery investor confidence, tighter development finance and regulatory delays such as Gateway 2 is slowing schemes before they even break ground.<\/p>\n

Margins are moving upwards too, rising from 5.7% in Q1 to 6.3% in Q3 \u2013 with consultants warning they could soon push towards the 7% threshold as costs continue to bite.<\/p>\n

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Main contractor overhead and profit margins<\/h3>\n
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\"\"<\/a>Based upon a \u00a310\u201330m project value<\/em><\/p>\n

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One contractor said: \u201cIncreases in contractor National Insurance costs are being passed directly on to the client\/end user.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another warned procurement rules and policy add-ons were making schemes unviable: \u201cWe need to be looking at UK government policies that are not adding value or social good, and removing them from tenders to allow a sporting chance of contracts being awarded within budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also found that while delays linked to the Building Safety Regulator have eased slightly \u2013 dipping from 37% of projects in Q2 to 25% in Q3 \u2013 residential schemes in London are still being hit hardest.<\/p>\n

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Confidence in the sector has also taken a knock. Fewer than half of respondents now feel positive about the industry\u2019s direction, compared with 70% when Labour came to power pledging to \u201cget Britain building again\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brian McArdle, Gleeds\u2019 UK managing director, said: \u201cOur Market Report shows a fragile but gradually stabilising picture of construction under a Labour government. The sector continues to come under strain from insolvencies, inflation, and labour pressures, but opportunities do exist in public housing, healthcare, education, infrastructure and commercial \u2013 success will depend on converting government spending commitments in these areas into real project delivery, while safeguarding supply chain resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n

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from Construction Enquirer https:\/\/ift.tt\/MA0XGtW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contractors are cranking up overhead and profit margins in bids as they take an increasingly cautious stance on risk and inflation. According to the latest market survey from consultant Gleeds contractors are continuing to retreat from high risk, with 57% admitting they\u2019ve reduced appetite for risk this quarter. Around three-quarters revealed that had walked away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-8080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-construction-enquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8081,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions\/8081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cita.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}