Why the Cheapest Tender Can Become the Most Expensive Build

Price matters when comparing tenders. But the number at the bottom only has meaning when you understand what sits behind it.

Two contractors can price the same drawings and arrive at very different totals because they have made different assumptions about scope, specification, risk, programme and unresolved design.

A lower tender may be entirely legitimate. But exclusions, optimistic allowances and untested assumptions can make an apparently attractive starting figure look very different once the project is underway.

I would want to understand what is included, what is excluded, where provisional sums remain, whether specialist packages are properly allowed for, how complete the design is and where risk has been priced.

Uncertainty is not automatically a problem. On complex residential projects some information will still be developing. The important thing is to make that uncertainty visible and deal with it honestly.

A contractor also has to price risk sensibly. Allowing for every conceivable problem makes a tender unnecessarily expensive; ignoring obvious risks to win the job is equally poor practice.

For me, the strongest tender is the one that gives the client and professional team the clearest realistic understanding of scope, cost and remaining uncertainty before commitment.