Something has changed in the way work is being priced. Across 2026, contractors have stopped competing hard on price and started protecting margin instead — building heavy contingency into bids and avoiding fixed-price exposure on anything long. Tenders are coming back over budget and projects are stalling before they start. If you have had a price back that made no sense, that is what you are looking at. This page explains the three ways you can work with us, and which one actually saves you money in a market that behaves like this one.
Three ways to work with us
We manage only
We do not build it. We sit on your side of the table.
You have a builder already, or you want one chosen properly. We tender the work, check the contract before you sign it, run the programme, value what has actually been done before you pay for it, inspect quality at the points where defects get buried, and report to you every week.
- We hold: no construction work in the job
- You pay: a fixed fee or a percentage — your choice
- Why it is honest: we have nothing to gain from a variation
- Best when: you already have a contractor, you are managing from abroad, or a job has gone wrong and needs taking over
Managed — open book
We manage and we buy. Every invoice is yours to see.
We run the programme, buy trades and materials in your name, and charge a management fee on top. Quotes, invoices and receipts are all open to you. If a package comes in under budget, the saving is yours — not ours.
- You pay: actual cost of works + our fee
- Cost certainty: a budget and a live forecast, not a guarantee
- Risk: you carry cost risk, we carry delivery risk
- Best when: the scope is still moving, or you want to see where every pound goes
Fixed price contract
One number. One company answerable for it.
We price the full scope from a defined specification and drawings and deliver it for that figure. Variations are priced and agreed in writing before they are built, so the number moves only when you decide it moves.
- You pay: the agreed contract sum, in staged payments
- Cost certainty: high — that is the whole point of it
- Risk: we carry cost and delivery risk
- Best when: the design is settled, or you are borrowing against a fixed figure
Why fixed prices are coming back high right now
A contractor asked to fix a price against an unfinished design has to price the unknown. In a stable market that risk premium is small. In this one — labour costs rising faster than 7% a year, subcontractors going under mid-job, Building Safety Act sequencing to absorb — the premium is large, and you pay it whether the risk ever materialises or not. Then every change becomes a variation, priced after you are already committed and have nowhere else to go.
That is not dishonesty on the contractor’s part. It is what a sensible business does when volatility stops being temporary. But it means the cheapest route to a finished building is no longer automatically the one with a number on it at the start.
Two-stage: the route serious clients are using
Instead of asking for a fixed price against drawings that are not finished, you appoint us early under a paid pre-construction agreement. In that first stage we work with your architect and engineer on buildability, break the job into trade packages, get open-book quotes from real subcontractors, and build a programme and a cost plan against actual numbers rather than allowances. Only when the scope is genuinely defined do we move to the second stage and agree the construction price.
You should know the catch, because most people offering this will not tell you: once a contractor is embedded in your team, you have less leverage when you come to agree the second-stage price. Two-stage prices often start higher than a single-stage tender for exactly that reason. The protections are simple and we will write them into the appointment — an agreed fee structure and open-book subcontractor pricing from the start, your right to take the completed package out to competitive tender, and a clean handover of design information if you do. If we are not the right price at stage two, you should be free to walk, and you will be.
What we actually do
Before site: reviewing drawings for buildability before anyone prices them, tendering trade packages properly instead of accepting one number for everything, building a programme against real material lead times, and telling you where the design is costing money it does not need to cost. Approvals: Building Regulations, structural sign-off, Party Wall notices and surveyors, CDM duties, and the site records building control will ask for. On site: sequencing trades so they are not standing on each other, inspecting at the stages where defects become invisible, valuing work honestly before payment, and pricing variations before they are built rather than after.
And the part clients tell us they value most: one written report every week — what got done, what is next, what it has cost against budget, and what decisions we need from you and by when. One named project manager, the same one, from first meeting to handover.
What it costs
For reference, London rates run roughly like this: architect-led project management 8–15% of build cost, specialist project management firms 3–15%, and open-book arrangements are normal above about £400,000. We will quote you a fixed fee or a percentage, whichever you prefer, and tell you which we think is fairer for your project.
Said plainly: on a managed project a competent manager usually earns their own fee back. Trade packages bought properly rather than accepted as a single quote, materials ordered ahead of price movements, trades sequenced so nobody stands idle, variations priced before they are built. If we do not believe management will pay for itself on your job, we will tell you to take the fixed price instead.
Before you appoint anyone — including us
Ask every firm you speak to for the same six things, and compare the answers rather than the brochures. A Companies House number and how long they have actually traded. Public Google reviews, not selected testimonials on their own website. Relevant accreditations for the trades involved. The name of the project manager who will run your job, and confirmation that it will be the same person throughout. Whether Building Control is inside the contract or billed to you later. And whether you get direct access to a director when something goes wrong.
Commercial, retrofit and fit-out
Speculative residential in London has slowed hard, and the work has moved to commercial retrofit, office and salon fit-out, and refurbishment of buildings already standing. That is work we do and have done for years, and it is work where programme discipline matters more than anywhere else, because the client is usually paying rent or losing trade while the site is open. If you are refitting premises, tell us your reopening date first and we will build the programme backwards from it.