Unlimited users, never per-seat30+ modules, one account14-day trial, no cardQR clock-in, server timedOne flat monthly feeCyber Essentials PlusFree migration includedCDM 2015 built inUK hosted, UK supportInsurance expiry checked nightlyAndroid and iOS appNo minimums, cancel anytimeBookkeeping capture, by email99.97% uptimeExport everything, anytime
Start the 14-day trial
Book a demo→
Insight · Winning work

Getting on a main contractor's
approved list.

The application is the easy half. What decides it is the evidence pack behind it, and what gets a firm quietly dropped afterwards is rarely the work.

Published ·5 min read·Written by Unibuild

Applying is a form and an evidence pack: accreditation, insurance, financial standing, health and safety records, references and a trade capability statement. What decides it is whether the pack is complete and current on the day it is reviewed. What keeps you on afterwards is performance, and nobody will tell you when you come off.

Why the list matters more than the tender

Most subcontract work at any scale is not won in open competition. It is won by being on a list and then being invited to price, which means the commercially significant event happens long before any tender arrives.

That reframes the effort. A firm spending its energy on pricing better is competing for the invitations it already gets. A firm getting onto three more supply chains has changed how many invitations exist. For a business that feels like the market has gone quiet, the second is nearly always the more useful question.

What the application actually needs

The form varies. The pack behind it is remarkably consistent, and preparing it once for all applications is worth a morning.

  1. Accreditation. An SSIP member scheme certificate for health and safety, and increasingly certification against the Common Assessment Standard, which replaced PAS 91 when BSI withdrew it in 2023. Which you need depends on who you are applying to, and the acronyms are mapped in SSIP, CHAS, Constructionline and what replaced PAS 91.
  2. Insurance schedules. Public liability, employers' liability, and often professional indemnity if you carry any design responsibility. The limits of indemnity are checked against their thresholds, not against what feels reasonable to you.
  3. Financial standing. Filed accounts, and frequently a credit reference. A firm with late filings or a weak balance sheet may be capped rather than refused, meaning approved up to a package value.
  4. Health and safety records. Policy, accident and RIDDOR history, sample RAMS, and evidence of training and competence.
  5. Trade references. Usually two or three, and they are contacted.
  6. A capability statement. What you do, at what scale, with what resource. The part most firms write badly, covered below.

What they are actually checking

Worth understanding, because it changes what you emphasise. A supply chain team is not primarily assessing whether you are good. It is assessing whether you are a risk to their programme, their compliance position and their client relationship.

Which means three questions sit behind the form. Can this firm resource the packages we would give them, or will they take one and then not turn up. Will they pass an audit if our client or the HSE looks at their work on our site. And are they financially likely to be here at the end of the job, because a subcontractor failing mid-package is one of the most expensive events a main contractor deals with.

Every document in the pack maps to one of those three. Answering them directly, rather than describing your quality of workmanship, is what separates a strong application from a complete one.

The capability statement

The one genuinely free-form part and the one most firms waste.

What is not useful: adjectives, a history of the company, and a claim to be reliable. Every applicant says all three and the reader has stopped seeing them.

What is useful is specific and checkable. The trades you self-deliver against those you subcontract. Your typical and maximum package value. How many operatives you can put on site and how many gangs that is. Named sectors you have actually worked in. Geographic range you will genuinely travel. And any accreditation or capability that is unusual for your trade, which is the thing most likely to make somebody remember you.

Nobody has ever been added to a supply chain for saying they take pride in their work. Being the only applicant who can put four gangs into a live retail environment is a different matter.

How firms come off the list

This is the part nothing else covers, and it matters more than the application.

Removal is almost never announced. There is no letter. You simply stop being invited to price, and because enquiries are irregular anyway, a firm can take six months to notice and will usually attribute it to the market.

Four causes, in rough order of frequency.

  • Expired documents. Insurance lapses, accreditation is not renewed, and the supply chain system flags you as non-compliant. Nobody chases it and you drop out of the pool. It is the commonest cause and it is entirely preventable, which is the subject of the certificates that expire without anybody noticing.
  • Not pricing. Declining or ignoring three or four enquiries in a row, usually because you were busy. Supply chain teams reasonably stop asking, and getting back into the rotation is harder than staying in it. Price something, even if you price it high.
  • A performance event. A delayed package, an unsafe act, a defect that came back. Recoverable if you deal with it directly and visibly; not recoverable if you argue.
  • The contact left. Sometimes it is nothing more than the person who knew you moving on, and nobody at the other end knowing why you were on the list.

The countermeasure to all four is the same and takes very little: a diarised check every six months on each supply chain you care about, confirming your documents are current on their system and asking whether anything is coming up. That call also fixes the fourth cause by creating a new contact.

Where this touches the platform

Two of the four reasons firms come off a list are records problems, and those are the ones Unibuild addresses. Insurance and accreditation expiry dates are held as data with prompts rather than sitting inside filed PDFs, so a lapse is caught before somebody else's system flags it. Health and safety records, RAMS, inductions and training sit against jobs and people with their dates, which is the evidence pack an application asks for and an audit tests. Certificates are generated on your letterhead from what was captured on site. What it does not do is fill in application forms, write your capability statement or make the six-monthly call, and the capability statement in particular is a piece of commercial thinking rather than a document to be produced.

Compliance and certification Documents and certificates Reminders and expiry Who runs on it

Where to start, on Monday

Build the pack once. One folder containing current accreditation, insurance schedules, filed accounts, health and safety policy, two sample RAMS, references and a one-page capability statement. Every future application becomes an hour instead of a week, and the reason firms do not apply to more supply chains is almost always that assembling the pack feels like a project.

Then make the call you have been putting off. Ring the supply chain contact at the main contractor you used to work for and have not heard from, and ask two questions: are our documents current on your system, and is there anything coming up we should be pricing. That call costs nothing and it is the single highest-return thing on this page.

Asked most often

The follow-up questions.

Which accreditation to hold is mapped in SSIP, CHAS, Constructionline and what replaced PAS 91.

How do I get on a main contractor's approved subcontractor list?+
Apply with a complete evidence pack: an SSIP member scheme certificate and increasingly Common Assessment Standard certification, public and employers' liability insurance schedules with limits meeting their thresholds, filed accounts and often a credit reference, health and safety policy and records, two or three trade references, and a specific capability statement. Completeness and currency on the day of review decide most applications.
What do main contractors check before using a subcontractor?+
Three things sit behind the paperwork: whether you can resource the packages they would give you rather than taking one and not turning up, whether your work would pass an audit if their client or the HSE looked at it, and whether you are financially likely to still be there at the end of the job. Every document in the pack maps to one of those.
What should a subcontractor capability statement say?+
Specific, checkable facts rather than adjectives: which trades you self-deliver against those you subcontract, your typical and maximum package value, how many operatives and gangs you can field, named sectors you have actually worked in, the geography you will genuinely travel, and any capability unusual for your trade. Claims about pride and quality are what every applicant writes and nobody reads.
Why did we stop getting enquiries from a main contractor?+
Most likely you came off the list and nobody told you, because removal is not announced. The four common causes are expired insurance or accreditation flagging you non-compliant on their system, declining or ignoring several enquiries in a row so they stopped asking, a performance event on a package, or simply the contact who knew you leaving.
How do I stay on a supply chain once I am approved?+
Diarise a check every six months on each supply chain you care about: confirm your documents are current on their system and ask whether anything is coming up. Price the enquiries you receive even when busy, because declining several in a row takes you out of the rotation. And where something goes wrong on a package, deal with it directly and visibly rather than arguing.
Read next

More from Insights.

Winning work··6 min readSSIP, CHAS, Constructionline and what replaced PAS 91An acronym map with the money attached. Which schemes are health and safety only, which are full pre-qualification, what mutual recognition actually saves you, and why PAS 91 is no longer the answer.Read it →Tax and CIS··5 min readWhat counts as construction work under CISThe included list is wider than most firms assume and the excluded list catches out exactly the trades that read it. Plus the mixed contract rule, which decides more cases than either list.Read it →Tax and CIS··5 min readCIS monthly returns, the date and the penaltiesThe nineteenth, every month, whether or not you paid anybody. What the penalty ladder actually looks like, and the declaration on the return that carries more weight than the figures.Read it →Tax and CIS··5 min readEnd user statements, and what they switch offIt has to be in writing, it comes from your customer rather than from you, and without it the reverse charge applies by default. What the statement says and where it belongs.Read it →Health and safety··5 min readThe certificates that expire without anybody noticingInsurance, cards, plant inspections, training and first aid all run out on different dates, and nothing about your file changes on the day one of them does. What has to watch them.Read it →Health and safety··5 min readWhen an HSE inspector turns up on siteWhat they can do, what they ask to see and in what order, what a Notification of Contravention means, and what the visit can cost you at £188 an hour.Read it →Health and safety··5 min readRIDDOR, what has to be reported and by whenThree different clocks run on three different categories, and the one firms miss is the fifteen days, which counts from the accident rather than from the day you realised.Read it →Health and safety··5 min readWhen a job becomes notifiable, and who tells the HSETwo thresholds, either of which triggers it, and a duty that sits with the client rather than with you. How to work out whether your job crosses them.Read it →Health and safety··5 min readWhich CSCS card, and who actually checks itSeven colours, different qualifications behind each, and a five year clock on most of them. What each card is for, and why it is not a legal requirement but still stops you at the gate.Read it →Choosing software··6 min readWhy WhatsApp fails as a site recordIt is the system most sites actually run on, and it works right up until somebody asks a question about March. Six specific failures, and the one that arrives when a person leaves.Read it →Choosing software··5 min readWhere spreadsheet job costing breaksNot when it gets complicated. When two people open it, when committed cost is not in it, and when the true position is a week old by the time anybody has assembled it.Read it →Choosing software··6 min readChoosing construction management software, and what to actually compareEvery product demos well. A buyer's checklist written to be useful even if you buy from somebody else, including the five questions vendors answer badly.Read it →Choosing software··5 min readXero for contractors, and where the accounts package stopsIt handles CIS properly and it is a good ledger. What it is not built to hold is the job: the measured schedule, the valuation, the retention and the cost you have committed but not yet been invoiced for.Read it →Choosing software··5 min readDocument control, and the revision everybody was working toBuilding to a superseded drawing is expensive, common, and almost never anybody being careless. What has to be true for the right revision to reach the person holding the tool.Read it →Getting paid··5 min readAn application for payment that does not come back rejectedFour reasons account for most rejections, and none of them is the price. What the document has to contain, what has to sit behind it, and the date that matters more than the total.Read it →Getting paid··5 min readGetting paid for variations you were told to get on withThe entitlement is rarely the problem. The evidence is. What stands up when the instruction was verbal, and the one email that changes the argument.Read it →Getting paid··5 min readWhen a missing notice hands you the moneyAn adjudication that asks nothing about what the work was worth, only whether the notices were served. What it wins, and the second adjudication that usually follows it.Read it →Getting paid··5 min readStopping work for non-payment, without breaching your contractA statutory right with narrow conditions and real leverage. What has to be true before you can use it, what the notice must say, and what walking off without one costs.Read it →Getting paid··5 min readCharging interest on a late payment, and the sums nobody claimsStatutory interest runs at eight per cent above base, and a fixed compensation sum sits on top of it that almost nobody asks for. Both are automatic entitlements rather than favours.Read it →Getting paid··6 min readWhat the Construction Act actually gives youSix rights that apply whether or not your contract mentions them, and whether or not anything was ever signed. What each one is, and where it stops.Read it →Subcontractors··6 min readVetting a subcontractor before you instruct themNine checks, what each one is actually protecting you from, and the two that firms skip and then discover matter. Most of it is twenty minutes and free.Read it →Reducing risk··6 min readCredit checking the firm above you, free, in twenty minutesEverything you need is public and none of it costs anything. Filing history, charges, director record, county court judgments, and the payment data large firms are now compelled to publish, including what they do with retention.Read it →Commercial··5 min readQuote or estimate, and which one binds youOne is an offer that becomes a fixed price the moment it is accepted. The other is an informed guess. Almost nobody says which they are sending, and the word at the top of the page is not what decides it.Read it →Health and safety··5 min readWhen you become the principal contractor without being toldThe duty attaches to a role, not to the size of the firm, and a second contractor arriving on site is enough to trigger it. What lands on you, and what happens when the client never appointed anybody.Read it →Choosing software··6 min readWhat construction software actually costsThe monthly figure is the part everyone compares and the smallest part of the bill. Setup, migration, the annual uplift, and the licences you ration because they are charged per person.Read it →Tax and CIS··8 min readThe VAT reverse charge, and who accounts for the VATFive years in and it still catches firms out on every second invoice. When it applies, when it does not, the written statement that switches it off, and the wording your invoice has to carry.Read it →Tax and CIS··7 min readReclaiming CIS deductions, and the money sitting with HMRCA limited company gets its deductions back through payroll rather than through its Corporation Tax return, and only if somebody files the right submission every month. Where the money goes, and how to stop it piling up.Read it →Commercial··7 min readThe gap between doing the work and having the moneyWages go out weekly, materials at thirty days, and the money comes back at sixty. Retention, CIS and the reverse charge each take a slice on the way. Why a job that made a profit can still run a firm out of cash.Read it →Getting paid··8 min readWhen the contractor above you will not payThe remedies run in a fixed order and each one costs more than the last. What to do first, what every step is worth, and the rung most disputes never get past.Read it →Getting paid··8 min readPay less notices, and the timetable behind themFour dates govern every interim payment in UK construction, and statute sets them rather than goodwill. What each one is, how to work them out on your own job, and what a late notice costs the party that served it.Read it →Getting paid··6 min readPay when paid, and why it does not bind youMaking your money conditional on somebody else being paid has been ineffective in UK construction since 1998. The clause is still written into contracts, still quoted down the phone, and still works on firms that do not know.Read it →Site team reviewing a risk assessment and method statement on a UK construction siteHealth and safety··7 min readRAMS that hold upWhat an inspector is actually looking for in a risk assessment and method statement, and the difference between a document that exists and one that is doing its job.Read it →Retention and the money that goes missing after practical completionCommercial··6 min readRetention, and the money that goes missing after practical completionWhere cash quietly disappears between the last valuation and the release of the second half of retention, and the four dates that decide whether you ever see it.Read it →Why field rollouts stall in week threeImplementation··6 min readWhy field rollouts stall in week threeMost site software is not rejected. It is quietly outlived by the paper route nobody switched off. What the firms that got it to stick did differently.Read it →
Next step

Keep the pack current without thinking about it.

Book a 45-minute demo → See compliance and certification
Phone · UK hours
+44 7587 557546
Email
[email protected]
More writing
All insights
What it costs
Pricing
WhatsApp us, someone is available now