One of the first questions I ask when discussing a new workplace project is how the client intends to procure it.
Quite often, the answer comes back immediately.
“We always use design and build.”
Or:
“Our procurement team requires a competitive single-stage tender.”
Sometimes there is a perfectly good reason for that.
But sometimes it is simply the way the organisation has always done things.
That worries me.
A procurement strategy should not start with the preferred contract or tendering process. It should start with the risks the client is trying to manage.
RICS makes broadly the same point in its current procurement practice information. Procurement strategy should reflect the client’s requirements and determine how the project team is structured and where responsibility for different elements of the project sits. The appropriate route should be selected by considering the advantages, disadvantages and project-specific factors rather than applying one solution universally.
For workplace projects, those factors can vary enormously.
A straightforward refurbishment with a well-developed design, good surveys and a flexible programme presents a very different risk profile from a fast-track relocation into an existing building where the MEP information is incomplete and the occupation date cannot move.
Why would we automatically procure them in the same way?
Start with the client’s priorities
Before selecting a procurement route, I would normally want to understand what really matters to the client.
- Is the completion date fixed?
- How important is early cost certainty?
- How developed is the design?
- How much design control does the client want to retain?
- How good is the information on the existing building?
- Does the project need contractor input before the design can be completed?
- How much change is likely?
- How competitive is the market?
- Where is the client comfortable holding risk?
There is rarely one procurement route that maximises cost, time, quality, flexibility and risk transfer simultaneously. There are trade-offs.
The job is to understand which ones matter most on this particular project.
Design and build isn’t automatically the lowest-risk option
Design and build is now extremely common in the workplace market.
There are good reasons for that.
The client can place responsibility for completing the design and constructing the works with one contracting party. It can simplify contractual responsibility and, where the employer’s requirements are sufficiently developed, provide greater certainty over delivery.
RICS describes design and build as a route where the construction team also takes responsibility for providing the design solution in response to the client’s brief.
But transferring responsibility is not the same as making risk disappear.
If the brief is unclear, surveys are incomplete or the employer’s requirements leave significant gaps, the contractor has to deal with that uncertainty somehow.
They may price it. They may qualify it. They may exclude it.
Or the issue may reappear later as a change.
A contract can say the contractor owns a risk. That does not necessarily mean the client has obtained good value for transferring it.
Risk should sit with the party best able to manage it
This is one of the most important principles in procurement.
Clients sometimes understandably want to transfer as much risk as possible to the contractor.
On paper, that can feel attractive. But contractors are not insurers.
If they are being asked to accept a risk they cannot properly assess or control, they will normally either include money for it or resist accepting it.
Suppose there is uncertainty around the capacity of an existing mechanical system.
The client could simply state that the contractor is responsible for verifying adequacy and delivering whatever upgrades are required.
That transfers the contractual risk.
But what will the contractor do?
If there is insufficient information to assess the system properly during tender, they either have to make an assumption or price an allowance for the uncertainty.
The client may therefore pay for a risk that never materialises.
A better approach may be to investigate it before tender and spend some money on the survey to understand the problem. Then ask the contractor to price something that can actually be defined.
Risk management and procurement therefore need to work together. The best risk transfer is often the risk you remove before it needs transferring.
When single-stage tendering works well
Single-stage competitive tendering can work very well where the project is sufficiently developed.
RICS describes it as the process where competing contractors price the same tender information for the whole of the works.
For me, the critical words are sufficiently developed.
Ideally, before going to market the client should have:
- a clear brief
- a coordinated design
- appropriate surveys
- a defined scope
- a realistic programme
- clear contractual requirements
- an understood risk position.
Get those things right and genuine competitive tension can be extremely effective.
Contractors are pricing substantially the same thing, uncertainty is reduced and the client has a better basis for comparing bids.
But going single stage simply because the procurement policy says “three competitive tenders” can produce the opposite result if the information isn’t ready.
You end up with three contractors pricing three slightly different interpretations of an incomplete project.
It looks competitive but it may not actually be comparable.
Two-stage procurement solves a different problem
Two-stage tendering is often used where the programme is constrained or the project would benefit from contractor input before the design is complete.
RICS notes that it allows design and tendering to overlap and brings a contractor into the project earlier, typically through a pre-construction services agreement.
That can be very useful on workplace projects.
The contractor can help with:
- buildability
- logistics
- sequencing
- package procurement
- long-lead items
- market testing
- subcontractor engagement
- programme development.
But two-stage procurement does not automatically reduce risk either.
It changes the risk profile.
You gain early contractor involvement, but you give up some competitive tension at the point the final contract sum is agreed.
That means the PCSA period has to be actively managed.
There should be clear deliverables, agreed package procurement, appropriate benchmarking, transparency around subcontract tenders and a genuine Plan B if the final price cannot be agreed.
Otherwise a two-stage process can gradually become a negotiated contract without the client ever consciously making that decision.
Traditional procurement still has a place
Traditional procurement sometimes gets dismissed as slow or old-fashioned.
I think that is too simplistic.
Under a traditional route, the client retains responsibility for the design and the contractor constructs what has been designed. Where properly implemented, RICS notes that this can provide reasonable certainty over cost before construction starts because the design is developed before competitive tenders are sought.
For the right client and the right project, that can be an advantage.
If design quality is particularly important, the client wants to retain control of the consultant team and there is sufficient time to develop the information properly, traditional procurement can be entirely appropriate.
The trade-off is that it generally requires more design development before construction starts and leaves more design responsibility with the client.
Again, neither good nor bad. Just a different allocation of risk.
And sometimes negotiation is sensible
There are circumstances where a negotiated tender can also be the right approach.
Perhaps the contractor already knows the building exceptionally well.
Perhaps there is a strong incumbent supply chain.
Perhaps the programme makes a full competition impractical.
Perhaps there is specialist knowledge that would be difficult to replicate.
RICS describes negotiated tendering as effectively obtaining a price from a single contractor and negotiating that price with the client’s professional team, usually including the quantity surveyor. The obvious trade-off is speed against reduced competitive tension.
The absence of a competitive tender does not mean the client should simply accept the price presented.
Benchmarking, package competition, open-book information and independent cost challenge become even more important.
If the route reduces competition, the commercial controls need to compensate for it.
Procurement policy is useful, until it stops you thinking
I understand why organisations create procurement policies.
Consistency is useful. Governance is important.
Competitive tendering protects organisations and helps demonstrate fair value.
For businesses managing portfolios across multiple countries, standardisation can also make projects easier to govern.
But policy should provide a framework for good decisions, not replace them.
If a client’s standard process requires every project over £5m to follow exactly the same procurement route regardless of programme, design maturity, building condition or market conditions, I would question whether that is really risk management.
It may simply be process compliance.
A better procurement policy might establish:
- minimum governance requirements
- competition thresholds
- approval processes
- required cost checks
- principles for risk allocation
- circumstances in which exceptions require approval.
That gives the organisation consistency without pretending every project is the same.
Don’t confuse procurement with tendering
This distinction is worth making because the two terms are often used interchangeably.
Tendering is how the contractor is selected and how the price is obtained.
Procurement is broader.
RICS describes procurement as the overall strategy for acquiring the works, taking account of the client’s requirements around matters such as time, quality, cost and risk. Tendering is one part of that strategy.
That distinction matters.
“We need three tenders” is not a procurement strategy. It is a tendering requirement.
The procurement strategy should explain why the project is being structured in a particular way, who owns which risks and how that approach supports the client’s objectives.
Final thought
I don’t think there is a universally “best” procurement route.
There is only a route that is more or less appropriate for a particular project.
A fast-track workplace relocation may justify early contractor involvement.
A well-developed refurbishment with good information may benefit from single-stage competition.
A client wanting maximum control over a high-quality design may prefer traditional procurement.
A specialist project with an established contractor may justify negotiation.
The mistake is deciding the answer before asking the questions.
I have seen projects pushed into design and build because “that’s how we always do it”, even where the information needed to transfer the risk properly simply wasn’t available.
I have also seen teams pursue competitive single-stage tenders to satisfy a procurement requirement despite knowing the design was not developed enough to obtain genuinely comparable prices.
In both cases, the process may have complied with policy. That doesn’t necessarily mean it represented good procurement.
For me, procurement should start with three questions:
What are we trying to achieve?
What could prevent us achieving it?
Who is best placed to manage each of those risks?
Once you understand those things, the procurement route becomes much easier to determine.
The route should follow the risk.
Not the other way round.
How we help
At EthosEQ, we help clients develop procurement strategies around the particular objectives and risks of their workplace project rather than automatically applying a standard route.
That starts by understanding the brief, programme, design maturity, cost objectives, available building information and client’s attitude to risk.
We can then assess the relative advantages and disadvantages of single-stage, two-stage, negotiated or traditional procurement and advise on how risks should be investigated, retained, mitigated or transferred.
Where two-stage procurement is appropriate, we can help establish the PCSA deliverables, package strategy, commercial controls and benchmarking needed to maintain competitive tension through to agreement of the contract sum.
Where single-stage competition is preferred, we help ensure the design and tender information are sufficiently developed for the market to provide meaningful, comparable prices.
The objective isn’t to promote a particular procurement route.
It is to help the client choose the route most likely to deliver the outcome they actually need.
Links
Tendering Strategies, 1st edition
Developing a construction procurement strategy and selecting an appropriate route
Cost Certainty Report – Expert Cost Consultancy
Copyright: © 2026 EthosEQ Ltd. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute procurement, cost, contractual, legal or investment advice. The appropriate procurement strategy will depend on the circumstances of each project, including scope, programme, design maturity, risk profile, market conditions and contractual requirements. Appropriate professional advice should be obtained before selecting a procurement or contracting strategy.
