Plain answers about websites, brands and marketing for small businesses, from Jack and Carly in Somerset.
A construction company website that holds up at tender stage shows the work, with a page for each project; accreditations a buyer can check, with the certificate behind every logo; the policies a prequalification questionnaire asks for; and a named person to ring. It backs up your PQQ or tender response. It never replaces one.
We build websites for construction firms, so we have an interest here. The procurement detail comes from gov.uk, SSIP, Build UK and the schemes' own pages, checked in October 2026. This is a plain English guide, not legal or procurement advice. For a live tender the buyer's documents decide what counts, so ask the buyer, the scheme or a bid writer.
Who looks at a construction website during a tender?
The people deciding whether you make the shortlist, and often they've never met you. A supply chain manager at a main contractor comparing three subcontractors. A facilities manager checking a name before asking for a quote. A public sector buyer working through a list of bidders. They read your website alongside whatever you sent them.
What they look for is simple: work like theirs, proof you're accredited for it, and a person to talk to. Public buyers will know your web address anyway. When you register on Find a Tender, the government's central digital platform for public contracts, the gov.uk short guide for suppliers (updated June 2026) lists your website among the details to have ready.
None of this means a website wins work by itself. The buyer scores the questionnaire and the tender. The site either backs up what you wrote or quietly contradicts it.
What should a construction company website include?
Eight pages, each with a job to do. Most are what any business site needs. The project detail, the accreditations and the documents are where a construction site is different.
| Page | What a buyer is checking | The usual miss |
|---|---|---|
| Projects | Work like theirs, at their scale, done recently | A photo gallery with no client, scope or date |
| Services | You do the specific job they're buying | One page listing everything you've ever done |
| Sectors | You know their kind of building and its rules | No sector pages, so a school or NHS buyer has to guess |
| Accreditations | Current and in scope, with a way to check them | Logos in the footer with nothing behind them |
| Policies and documents | The paperwork exists and is up to date | "Available on request" |
| About and team | Real people with the right experience | Stock photos and no names |
| Careers | You can staff the job | A careers page with nothing on it |
| Contact | A named person, a phone number, a way to send drawings | A form that only takes a short message |
The contact page is the one people forget is part of the tender. For bigger jobs, the enquiry form should take attachments, so a contractor can send plans or a scope with the first message. Our websites for construction firms are built that way, with a capability statement and your certificates downloadable from a page of their own.
What do our construction clients' sites show?
We look after the sites for four construction and building firms, and each one gets a different part of this right. Everything below is on their live sites as we checked them in October 2026.
emesen: project pages that say who did what
emesen is a project and cost management consultancy in Bristol and Cardiff. Its projects page lists 17 schemes, and each opens a page on what emesen's people did. The National Composite Centre page names the contract (NEC Option A) and the BREEAM Excellent rating, then says plainly that the cost management was done by a member of the team in their previous job. A buyer would find that out anyway. Saying it first reads as honest, and we kept it for that reason.
The About page puts a name under every one of its 14 portraits. The footer carries the RICS, Good Business Charter, Cyber Essentials and ISO logos with the certificate number on every page, and the news page is where emesen announced becoming a Bloom accredited supplier, which lets public sector bodies buy from it through the NEPRO³ framework. We designed the brand and built the site; the emesen case study has the detail.
Hoistway: the documents a PQQ asks for, one click away
Hoistway installs and maintains lifts from Martock in Somerset. Its case studies page lists 22 projects, each with the location, the lift specification (how many lifts, floors, load and speed) and a PDF to download. Its policies page offers the Health and Safety, Quality and Environmental policy statements as downloads. Health and safety, quality and environment are the three policy areas a PQQ almost always covers.
Comfinity: a page for each sector, with the standards named
Comfinity installs data cabling and fibre from Nottingham. It has a page for each sector it works in, and the education page names the Department for Education network cabling standards it installs to, Cat 6A copper and OM4 fibre. The About page lists the cards its engineers hold: IPAF, PASMA, DBS and ECS. We rebuilt all 27 pages of the old Wix site and carried every old page address across, which the Comfinity case study covers.
JR Renovations: a new firm, every job on its own page
JR Renovations is a building and refurbishment firm in Trowbridge, set up in 2024. A short track record hasn't stopped it giving each recent job its own page. The Hotpod Yoga studio page lists the work done, from structural changes and flooring to joinery and lighting.
If we had to pick one habit from the four, it would be emesen's project pages. A buyer believes a page that names the contract and admits who did the work. A line of famous client logos proves far less.
How should you show accreditations like CHAS, Constructionline and ISO?
On a page of their own and beside the work they apply to, with each logo linked to the certificate or the register entry, and with the dates kept current. A buyer's next step after seeing a logo is to check it, so make that easy.
- SSIP schemes (CHAS, SafeContractor and others). These are health and safety assessments. SSIP says all its member schemes assess against the same Core Criteria, aligned with HSE guidance, and its Deem to Satisfy process lets a supplier with one scheme's certificate apply to another scheme without a full new assessment. CHAS and SafeContractor are both SSIP Registered Members. Buyers can check a certificate on the free SSIP Portal.
- The Common Assessment Standard. Build UK's industry question set for prequalification, certified once a year by a Recognised Assessment Body at desktop or site-based level. Build UK's list of those bodies includes Constructionline (Gold and Platinum), Veriforce CHAS (CHAS Elite), Achilles BuildingConfidence and SMAS Worksafe. It has a Building Safety section, and Build UK scheduled version 6 for 1 November 2026.
- ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001. The management system standards for quality, environmental management and occupational health and safety. If the certificate comes from a UKAS accredited body, buyers can check it on UKAS CertCheck, a free public database UKAS launched in June 2022.
- Trade bodies and memberships. RICS, the Good Business Charter, your trade association. Say what the membership means in a line, because a buyer outside your trade may not know.
Show the scope too. A certificate covers certain activities, and a buyer wants to see that yours covers their job.
Our firm opinion: an out-of-date certificate on your website is worse than none. The person checking you is looking for exactly that, so put every expiry date in the diary and swap the file the week the new certificate arrives.
Which policies and documents should be on a construction website?
The ones that turn up in almost every prequalification: your health and safety, quality and environmental policy statements, and a capability statement, each as a download. Add insurance details if your buyers ask for them, and a modern slavery statement if the law says you must have one.
- Health and safety policy statement. Dated, so a buyer can see it's current.
- Quality and environmental policy statements. If you hold ISO 9001 or 14001, these sit alongside the certificates.
- Capability statement. We'd keep it to two to four pages: what you do, where, at what scale, three or four recent projects, and who to contact.
- Modern slavery statement. Under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, commercial organisations with annual turnover of at least £36 million must prepare one, and the government's standard selection questions ask suppliers to confirm it's published (PPN 03/24, Annex A).
- Insurance. Your cover levels, if you're happy to publish them. Public buyers can ask for the insurance a contract needs, and the gov.uk guidance lets them set it as cover you'll have in place when the contract starts, shown by a certificate or a letter from your insurer.
Date every document and replace it when it changes. A 2019 policy statement tells a buyer nobody's looking after the paperwork.
How do you write a construction case study for your website?
Give each job its own page with the facts a buyer would ask you on the phone: who the client was, where it was, what you did and how big it was. Photographs from your own sites beat stock images every time, even when they were taken on a phone.
- The client and the place. "Future Inns Hotel, Bristol" tells a buyer more than "a hotel in the South West".
- Your scope. What you did, as opposed to what the main contractor did.
- The numbers. Quantities, floors, metres of cable, programme length, whatever your trade measures. Hoistway's pages give the lift count, load and speed for every job.
- The contract and the standard. The form of contract, the rating achieved, the standard installed to, if you can say it.
- Who did it. If the work was done by your people at a previous firm, say so, as emesen does.
- The photos. During and after, with a line on each.
- A quote from the client, only if it's real and they've agreed to it.
Those pages feed straight into the paperwork. The government's standard selection questions (PPN 03/24, Annex B) ask for up to three relevant contract examples, and for works they can come from the past five years. If each of your best jobs already has a page with the facts, you are not starting that answer from nothing.
Check what you can publish before you write it. Some clients won't want their name or the contract value on your site, and a line saying "a private client in Bath" is better than nothing.
What is a PQQ in construction, and is PAS 91 still used?
A PQQ, or prequalification questionnaire, is how a buyer checks a supplier's suitability before inviting it to tender. The government's standard selection questions, for example, cover company details, grounds for exclusion, finances, past contracts and insurance. PAS 91 was the standard construction PQQ, but the BSI has withdrawn it.
The government's PPN 03/24, written for procurements under the old Public Contracts Regulations 2015, says it removed references to PAS 91 "which has now been withdrawn by the BSI". Its guidance says that for works contracts, buyers should use the Common Assessment Standard in place of the standard selection questionnaire. Constructionline says the BSI withdrew PAS 91 in 2023, that some buyers may still use it as a basic level of compliance, and that holding an SSIP accreditation can exempt you from sections of a standard questionnaire.
So if a private buyer sends you a PAS 91 style questionnaire, answer it. If you're choosing which assessment to hold, the Common Assessment Standard is the one the public sector guidance points to.
How has the Procurement Act 2023 changed PQQs for public work?
Since 24 February 2025, public buyers working under the Act no longer have to use the standard selection questionnaire. They set "conditions of participation", and the basics about your company sit on Find a Tender, the central digital platform, ready to share with each buyer.
The gov.uk guidance on conditions of participation (updated August 2026) says:
- conditions can only test your legal and financial capacity or your technical ability, and must be proportionate to the contract.
- the Act doesn't prescribe how you prove them, where the old rules made the standard selection questionnaire compulsory.
- for works contracts, buyers can still use industry questionnaires such as the Common Assessment Standard, as long as they meet the Act's rules.
- a buyer can't demand a particular qualification without allowing equivalents.
- a buyer can't make audited accounts a condition if company law doesn't make you have them audited.
- you confirm your "core supplier information" is up to date on the platform: your name and address, exclusion grounds, economic and financial standing, and connected persons.
Find a Tender is free to use, and gov.uk says you only need to register when you want to bid. Your website doesn't appear in any of these rules. It's what the buyer reads to see whether the firm behind the answers is the one you described.
When is a site like this more than you need?
When you don't tender. If you're a sole trader or a small team taking local jobs from homeowners, you need tap to call, a page for each job and the towns you cover, not a policies page. Our page on websites for tradesmen is the better fit.
And a website can't fix a missing accreditation. If buyers keep asking for a scheme you don't hold, that's a conversation with the scheme, not with us.
Want a website that holds up at the shortlist?
Our websites for construction firms page shows what we build and what it costs. A firm with several services and a set of projects usually fits our ten page Business plan, £1,795 or £169 a month, plus VAT, with no setup fee. Most take six to twelve weeks from the first call, and gathering the project photos is usually the slow part.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a website to tender for public sector work?
Nothing in the Procurement Act guidance we read says you must have one. In practice the buyer will look you up, and Find a Tender asks for your web address when you register. A thin or out-of-date site won't fail you on its own, but it gives a buyer a reason to doubt the answers.
Is CHAS or Constructionline better?
Whichever your buyers ask for. Check the tender documents and the supply chain pages of the contractors you want to work for. Both are on Build UK's list of Common Assessment Standard bodies, and SSIP's Deem to Satisfy can save a second full health and safety assessment.
How many projects should a construction website show?
Enough to show each service and sector you want more of, with recent ones first. Six good project pages beat forty photos with no words. You can add more as jobs finish, and on our plans you can send us the photos and a few lines and we'll put the page up.
Sources
All checked October 2026.
- GOV.UK, The Procurement Act 2023: a short guide for suppliers, updated 23 June 2026. Rules changed 24 February 2025; Find a Tender free; registration details including your website.
- GOV.UK, Guidance: conditions of participation, updated 17 August 2026. Capacity and ability, proportionality, equivalents, audited accounts, insurance, the Common Assessment Standard for works, core supplier information.
- GOV.UK, Central digital platform factsheet. Find a Tender as the central digital platform from 24 February 2025.
- GOV.UK, PPN 03/24: Standard Selection Questionnaire, 27 March 2024, and Annex A. PAS 91 withdrawn by the BSI; Common Assessment Standard for works contracts; modern slavery statements. Annex B: question areas, up to three contract examples (five years for works), insurance.
- Build UK, Common Assessment Standard. Annual certification, desktop and site-based levels, Building Safety section, version 6 on 1 November 2026, Recognised Assessment Bodies.
- SSIP, Deem to Satisfy to Mutual Recognition and home page. Core Criteria, Deem to Satisfy, Registered Members, the free SSIP Portal.
- Constructionline, PAS 91. BSI withdrawal in 2023; some buyers may still use it.
- BSI, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001.
- UKAS, UKAS CertCheck. Free database of UKAS accredited management system certificates, launched June 2022.
- Client sites, checked 16 October 2026: emesen, Hoistway, Comfinity, JR Renovations.
- Bare: websites for construction firms (prices, attachments, downloads, timings), emesen case study and Comfinity case study.
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