Bid writing for minor works contractors
We write and check minor works tenders for councils, schools and NHS estates at fixed, published prices: a Health Check of your own draft from £195 (founding price; standard £395), a full Response Draft from £795. We write for one firm per lot. In 12 months of minor works awards, the median competed tender drew 4 bids and 68% of winners filed small or micro company accounts, so small contractors win this work.
Who can help me write a tender for council or school building works?
A specialist bid writer, a freelance writer or a consultancy can, and so can we. ClearBid writes the whole quality response from your own evidence (a Response Draft, from £795) or checks one you have written (a Health Check, from £195 (founding price; standard £395)), at a fixed price agreed before you pay. We write for one firm per lot, and we never price the works.
Minor works here means building works a small contractor prices and builds: refurbishment and fit-out, mechanical and electrical, roofing, groundworks and external works, building fabric, windows and doors, extensions and new build, for councils (including council schools), NHS estates and other public bodies; housing repairs and improvement works are counted as repairs, not here.
What should a minor works method statement cover?
Buyers mark how you will run this job on this site. Answer each question in the buyer's order, with your own people, method and past jobs. Most minor works questions ask about these six things:
- Programme. The sequence of the works, key stages, lead times for materials and plant, and how you fit the buyer's dates and access windows.
- Health and safety under CDM 2015. Who is principal contractor, your construction phase plan, risk assessments and method statements, asbestos before any intrusive work, working at height and hot works permits.
- Working in an occupied building. Hoarding, deliveries and access routes kept away from building users, noise and dust, and keeping services running. On a school site: holiday working, DBS checks and safeguarding. On a hospital site: infection prevention and control and keeping clinics and fire routes open.
- Quality control and handover. Inspections and hold points, testing and commissioning, guarantees, snagging, operation and maintenance manuals, and the defects period.
- Social value. Commitments you can deliver on a contract this size, such as local labour, apprentices or local spend, with how you will report them.
- Accreditations. CHAS, Constructionline or another safety scheme, and for mechanical and electrical work Gas Safe and NICEIC or NAPIT. Buyers often make these pass or fail.
Minor works tenders in numbers
| Measure | Figure | Based on |
|---|---|---|
| Competed minor works contracts (lots) awarded in 12 months | 1,116 | all public buyers, England and Wales, £100k to £4m; direct awards and framework set-ups left out |
| Median bids per competed lot | 4 | 504 competed lots, all public buyers, any value; middle half 3 to 7. Lots worth £100k to £4m drew a median of 5 (281 lots) |
| Median share of marks for quality | 50% | 126 lots with a published weighting, all public buyers, any value; middle half 29% to 70% |
| Of lots give quality more than half the marks | 48% | 126 lots with a published weighting, all public buyers, any value |
| Of winners file small or micro accounts | 68% | winning suppliers matched to Companies House (88% of 3,986 award rows) |
| Median contract value | £100,000 | 3,102 contracts with a published value, any value; middle half £45,000 to £273,000 |
| Median initial term | 2.5 months | 3,115 contracts with a start and end date; middle half 1.3 to 5.6 months |
| Let through open or competitive tenders | 67% | 3,430 lots; 26% direct awards, 3% framework or DPS set-ups, 5% call-offs |
Source: ClearBid analysis of Find a Tender and Contracts Finder notices, October 2025 to October 2026, matched to Companies House. Public sector minor works contracts worth £100,000 to £4 million in England and Wales. How we work these out.
Which minor works tenders draw the fewest bids?
Mechanical and electrical tenders drew a median of 3 bids, and 78% of their winners filed small or micro accounts. Refurbishment and fit-out is the most crowded, at 6. NHS estates tenders drew 3.5, but almost none publish their weighting.
| Kind of work | Share of contracts | Median bids | Small or micro winners |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refurbishment and fit-out | 29% | 6 | 66% |
| Mechanical and electrical | 20% | 3 | 78% |
| Roofing | 14% | 5 | 74% |
| Groundworks and external works | 13% | 5 | 67% |
| Building fabric, windows and doors | 8% | 3 | 75% |
| New build | 3% | 4 | 64% |
| Other or unclear titles | 11% | 4 | 61% |
Competed contracts worth £100,000 to £4 million, October 2025 to October 2026; bids on every competed contract of that kind with a published bid count. Kinds of work with fewer than 20 such contracts are left out of the table. Source: ClearBid analysis of Find a Tender and Contracts Finder award notices.
Who buys minor works
- Councils let 57% of minor works contracts, and 198 of them in the year were works at schools, for example roofs, boilers, windows and toilets.
- NHS trusts and estates bodies let 25%, mostly mechanical and electrical work and refurbishment on live hospital and clinic sites.
- Contracts are small and short. The median was worth £100,000 and ran 2.5 months, so a Health Check of your own answers is often the right size of help. Our guide to winning council and NHS minor works goes through the figures by buyer.
- Repairs is a different contest. Housing repairs tenders drew a median of 7 bids. Repair and improvement works to council and housing association homes count as housing repairs, not here.
Registers we check for minor works bids
Buyers check the accreditations you claim. So before a bid goes out, your reviewer checks each one against its public register, by hand where the register doesn't allow automated checks. We're appointing experienced UK bid writers; every bid we write or check is reviewed before it reaches you, and nothing is delivered until a reviewer is in place.
How we write your bid
Response Draft demo 0:41, with captions
A fixed price first, our questions one at a time, every claim traced to your evidence, and a Word file with the changes tracked.
Read the transcript
Your quality answers, written for you.
Product demo. The companies shown are fictional. The tenders are real public tenders that have closed, with dates moved for the demo. Every output shot is labelled "Illustration: fictional company, real closed tender".
On screen: The quote page: Response Draft, one firm per lot, the tender, the company found from the work email. The fixed price and the company checks.
Found a tender you want? We'll write the quality answers. You see a fixed price up front, and we write for one firm per lot.
On screen: One question at a time, why it's asked, and the talking points to cover. A voice note recorded, turned into text and checked before use. The tender's insurance requirement; the certificate sent from the question.
Next, we ask the questions that win marks, one at a time. Answer by typing or by voice note, and send certificates as you go.
On screen: Where your bid came from: each paragraph's source, from a voice note and a certificate. The reviewer cockpit: the buyer's question, the evidence behind a claim, a finding agreed. A change suggested by the reviewer and shown as a tracked change.
Every claim traces back to something you gave us. A UK bid writer checks the draft before you see it.
On screen: The Word draft, with the reviewer's tracked change and comment.
Then it's yours, as a Word file with the changes tracked.
On screen: ClearBid end card: clearbiduk.com
Check your website for free at clearbiduk.com.
Illustration: fictional company, real closed tender
Prices
- Tender Breakdown: Every question, weighting, word limit, pass/fail rule and date from one tender pack, in plain English, with the buyer's award history from published notices. From £95
- Health Check: Send us a bid you've written, yourself or with AI. We estimate the score of every question on the buyer's own scale and list the 10 fixes worth the most marks. From £195
- Response Draft: We write your whole quality response from your own evidence: every answer to its marking criteria and word limit, checked against the full tender pack. From £795
- Bid Radar: A weekly email of live council, housing association and care tenders that fit your trades and area, and a 24-month calendar of contracts coming up for re-tender, from published award notices. From £49 a month
Fixed prices, no VAT added. Founding prices where shown. All services, sample deliverables or get a fixed price for your tender.
Minor works tenders by trade and region
Live tenders, contracts ending in the next 12 months and the main buyers, rebuilt every night. Roofing, windows and doors and the other building trades cover housing and minor works together.
Building fabric repairs: London.
Decorating: London.
Electrical and EICR testing: East Midlands, East of England, London, North West England, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
Fire safety: East Midlands, East of England, London, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands.
Gas and heating: East Midlands, London, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
Groundworks: East Midlands, East of England, London, North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
Insulation and retrofit: East Midlands, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands.
Kitchens and bathrooms: East of England, London, South East England, Yorkshire and the Humber.
Mechanical and electrical: East Midlands, East of England, London, North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
New build: London.
Refurbishment: East Midlands, East of England, London, North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
Roofing: East Midlands, East of England, London, North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
Windows and doors: East Midlands, East of England, London, North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.
A trade and region gets a page once our data holds enough contracts. All trades and regions.
Related guides
- How do you win council and NHS minor works contracts?
- How are tenders scored, and what does a 5 out of 5 answer look like?
- Social value in council and housing association tenders
- How much does a bid writer cost in the UK?
Questions
Who can help me write a tender for council or school building works?
ClearBid writes and checks minor works tenders for councils, schools and NHS estates at fixed prices: a Health Check of your own draft from £195 (founding price; standard £395), or a full Response Draft from £795. We write for one firm per lot, so we never help a competitor on the same contract, and we never price the works.
How many contractors bid for a council or NHS minor works tender?
A median of 4 per competed lot in our data (504 competed lots, all public buyers, any value, October 2025 to October 2026). Mechanical and electrical tenders drew a median of 3, refurbishment 6 and NHS estates tenders 3.5.
Do you write the method statement?
Yes. A method statement is a quality answer: how you will run this job on this site. We write it from your own method, people and past jobs, and mark anything we need from you, such as programme dates, as [EVIDENCE NEEDED] rather than guess.
Do you check our CHAS, Constructionline, Gas Safe or NICEIC?
Yes, by hand. Those registers don't allow automated checks, so your reviewer checks each one against its public register before a bid goes out. An unchecked accreditation is never presented as verified.
Will you price the works or the schedule of rates?
No. We never write or advise on pricing. You price the works and submit the bid yourself.
Sources
- ClearBid award statistics and method. Source: ClearBid analysis of Find a Tender and Contracts Finder notices, October 2025 to October 2026, matched to Companies House. Public sector minor works contracts worth £100,000 to £4 million in England and Wales.
- ClearBid segment checks: minor works (analysis/segment-checks-results-2026-10-28.md). The minor works rule, the title checks and the figures by buyer and kind of work
Public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See who ClearBid Research is and how our figures are built.