A lot of field service businesses decide they want to win commercial work and immediately start looking for tenders.
On paper, that makes sense. Find an opportunity, submit a bid, win the contract. In reality, it rarely works like that.
Most businesses that struggle to win commercial contracts don’t lose because they wrote a poor submission. They lose because they started preparing after the opportunity appeared. By the time a tender lands in your inbox, the groundwork should already be done.
The businesses that consistently win commercial work tend to have the basics in place long before they need them. Their insurance meets commercial requirements. Their accreditations are up to date. They have a capability statement ready to send, a professional online presence, and at least a few commercial references they can point to. When a property manager asks for credentials or a contractor requests supplier information, they’re not scrambling to pull documents together.
The good news is that most of this preparation isn’t complicated. It just takes a bit of planning.
In this guide, we’ll look at what commercial clients expect before they’ll consider working with you, where to find commercial opportunities outside formal tender processes, and how to build the credibility that helps turn a first commercial job into a long-term source of work.
If you’re looking for a detailed guide to writing tenders, scoring criteria, and public sector procurement, we’ve covered that separately in our guide to winning commercial contracts.
Table of Contents:
- Commercial work is not one thing
- Getting ready before you approach anyone
- Finding commercial clients without a tender process
- Finding public sector opportunities
- What happens after you win the first one
- Using job data to price commercial contracts
- Managing commercial contracts operationally
- FAQs
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Commercial work is not one thing
One of the biggest misconceptions about commercial work is that it’s all the same. In reality, there are huge differences between servicing a local office block, subcontracting on a fit-out project, and bidding for a public sector maintenance contract.
Small commercial clients sit at the accessible end. Local businesses, retail premises, restaurants, office buildings, small landlords, and property management companies managing modest portfolios. These clients need reliable, responsive field service contractors and do not always have a long-standing relationship with a larger operation. Response time and reliability matter more to them than company size. This is the right entry point.
Mid-sized commercial and FM work sits in the middle. General contractors running commercial fit-outs, tenant improvement projects, and managed service contracts with multiple properties. Winning here requires being on approved supplier lists, demonstrating consistent past performance, and having the documentation to match what their procurement teams expect.
Larger commercial and public sector sits at the more complex end. Formal tender processes, pre-qualification questionnaires, safety accreditations, bonded bids, and detailed compliance documentation. This is not where you start. It is where you get to after building the credentials and track record that make bidding viable.
Start where the barrier is lowest. Build your commercial references. Then move up.
Getting ready before you approach anyone
Before you start contacting property managers or looking at tenders, make sure the basics are covered. Commercial clients will often ask for proof of insurance, accreditations, and safety documentation before they’ll even consider adding you to a supplier list.
Insurance
Most commercial clients in the UK require public liability insurance of £1 million per occurrence minimum, £2 million aggregate. Many larger clients, particularly in facilities management and public sector work, require £2 million per occurrence, £5 million aggregate. Employer’s liability insurance is a legal requirement if you have employees, and commercial clients will verify it.
Check your policy covers commercial premises; a standard domestic policy may not. Ask your broker about being named as an additional insured on projects where the client requires it. This is standard practice in commercial work. Domestic clients never ask for it; commercial ones often do.
Health and safety accreditation
For facilities management contracts, property management work, and public sector procurement, SSIP-recognised accreditation is increasingly expected as a baseline. CHAS and SafeContractor are the most widely recognised in the UK. Both assess your health and safety policies, documentation, and management systems, and award accreditation that buyers recognise without having to conduct their own assessment.
Getting accredited takes preparation: documented health and safety policies, risk assessments, method statements, training records, and insurance certificates. Once you have it, you can reference it in every commercial bid and it removes a barrier that would otherwise rule you out before a conversation starts.
Trade and competency accreditations
Depending on your trade, the relevant accreditations that strengthen a commercial bid considerably include:
- Gas engineers: Gas Safe registration, current on the register
- Electricians: NICEIC or NAPIT approved contractor status
- HVAC: F-Gas certification for refrigerant handling, Refcom registration
- Fire and security: BAFE or NSI accreditation
- Facilities maintenance: familiarity with SFG20 building services standards
These are not optional extras; they’re considered as the minimum the buyer needs to see before they consider you for most commercial work.
Your capability statement
Your capability statement is a one or two page document covering what your business does, who you have worked for, what accreditations you hold, and what makes your business reliable. For commercial clients and public sector buyers, this is your calling card when you make first contact. It should exist, be up to date, and be ready to send at short notice.
Business presentation
You do not need a large operation to win commercial work. You do need to look like a real, established business. A professional website, a company email address, branded vehicles, and consistent documentation all send signals. Commercial clients are assessing risk. Your presentation either increases or reduces their perceived risk.
Finding commercial clients without a tender process
Most smaller commercial contracts are awarded through relationships, introductions, and direct approaches rather than published listings. Start here, well before you are ready to compete in a formal tender process.
Property management companies
If you’re trying to land your first commercial client, property management companies are often one of the best places to start. Many manage dozens of buildings and regularly need reliable contractors for maintenance, repairs, and compliance work.
How to approach them: call the company and ask for the maintenance or facilities coordinator. Introduce your business, confirm you hold the relevant accreditations and insurance, and ask whether they are open to adding approved contractors. Follow up in writing with your capability statement, accreditation documents, and insurance certificate. Follow up again. These relationships take time to develop but compound once established.
General contractors and subcontractor lists
General contractors running commercial refurbishments, fit-outs, and managed service programmes maintain approved subcontractor lists. Reaching out directly, providing your credentials upfront, and making it easy to say yes (sending your licence number, insurance certificate, and accreditation details in the first email) removes the admin burden that slows decisions down.
Facilities management companies
Larger FM operators working in healthcare, education, and retail subcontract specialist trades. Getting into their supply chain requires meeting their supplier approval process, which typically mirrors the accreditation requirements above.
LinkedIn outreach
Facilities coordinators, building services managers, and property managers are reachable on LinkedIn. A concise, professional approach explaining your trade, accreditations, coverage area, and what makes your business reliable can generate conversations that lead to supplier approvals. It requires persistence, not volume.
Finding public sector opportunities
For public sector work, opportunities are published on Contracts Finder for contracts over £12,000 and Find a Tender for contracts over £139,000. In Northern Ireland, eSourcing NI covers public sector opportunities. Scotland uses Public Contracts Scotland. Wales uses Sell2Wales.
Register on these platforms before you need them and set up keyword alerts. When searching, use CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes alongside keywords: for field service trades, the most relevant include 50000000 (repair and maintenance services), 50700000 (repair and maintenance of building installations), 50710000 (electrical and mechanical equipment), and 45330000 (plumbing and sanitary engineering works).
For a full walkthrough of how the public sector tender process works, how submissions are scored, and how to write responses that score well, the guide to winning commercial contracts covers every step.
What happens after you win the first one
Many businesses spend so much effort winning their first commercial contract that they forget what comes next. In reality, the real value often comes from the second, third, and fourth jobs that follow.
Over-deliver on the first contract with any new commercial client. Show up when you say you will. Keep sites clean. Communicate proactively when something changes. Submit documentation on time. Do this consistently and the next opportunity often arrives without a competitive process, because you have already demonstrated you are lower risk than anyone new.
After completing a commercial project or contract cycle, ask for a formal written reference. Build your reference portfolio. When bidding for new work, a list of commercial references with named contacts at facilities managers, property management companies, and public bodies is more persuasive than almost anything else.
The commercial world is a network. A good reputation with one property manager gets mentioned to another. One general contractor tells another. Once you’ve built a few strong commercial relationships, winning additional work becomes much easier because referrals start opening doors for you.
Using job data to price commercial contracts
One advantage experienced contractors have when pricing commercial work is data. They know roughly how long similar jobs take, what parts are typically required, and where costs tend to creep in.
A business that has serviced similar assets over several years has an accurate cost model for that type of work: average time on site, parts consumption, first-time fix rate, and how often a site requires a follow-up visit. That data builds a tender price that is competitive because it is evidence-based, and it protects margin because it accounts for the costs others estimate. The field service data guide covers how to use historical job data to price contracts.
Managing commercial contracts operationally
As commercial work grows, administration tends to grow with it. Managing multiple sites, recurring visits, compliance records, and SLA commitments quickly becomes difficult using spreadsheets and paper-based processes.
Fieldmotion’s job management platform connects the full workflow from contract scheduling through to completion and invoice. The planned maintenance module schedules recurring visits in advance and generates jobs automatically when visits are due. Mobile forms allow engineers to complete site visit records and capture compliance evidence on site. The customer portal gives commercial clients visibility of their service history and compliance records without needing to contact the office.
The quoting feature connects to job records so that contract renewals and additional scope quotes reflect actual costs rather than estimates. For more on structuring and pricing maintenance contracts, the service agreements guide covers the detail.
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FAQs
What accreditations do I need to win commercial field service contracts in the UK?
The baseline for most commercial and public sector work is public liability insurance at £1 million per occurrence minimum, employer’s liability insurance, and an SSIP-recognised health and safety accreditation such as CHAS or SafeContractor. Trade-specific accreditations (Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT, F-Gas, BAFE) are required for relevant work types. Most commercial clients expect these before any conversation starts.
Where do I find commercial contract opportunities without a formal tender?
Property management companies, general contractors, and facilities management firms are the most productive starting points for smaller field service businesses. They need reliable trade contractors regularly and do not always advertise opportunities publicly. Direct outreach with your credentials, followed up persistently, is how most smaller commercial relationships start.
Do I need to be a large business to win commercial contracts?
No. Commercial clients are assessing reliability and risk, not size. A smaller business with current accreditations, strong references from similar commercial work, and a professional presentation can win against larger competitors. The Procurement Act 2023 includes specific provisions to make it easier for small and medium businesses to compete for public sector contracts.
How do I build commercial references if I have no commercial history?
Start with the smallest accessible commercial clients in your area: small landlords, local businesses, retail premises. Deliver those jobs professionally, document the work thoroughly, and ask for a written reference. A written reference from a facilities coordinator at a commercial property is more credible in a commercial bid than domestic testimonials.
What is a capability statement?
A capability statement is a one or two page document summarising what your business does, your accreditations, your relevant experience, and your key differentiators. It is the document you send when making first contact with commercial clients, and it functions as your calling card before any formal procurement process begins.
