Why Unibuild

A proven core,
tailored to you.

You are not buying a blank sheet, and you are not being forced into somebody else's process. Unibuild already runs UK trade businesses every working day, and is then configured around how yours works. Anything you need is built for you, and changes after go-live are inside the monthly fee. How bespoke works.

Book a 30-minute demo → Ask for a quote

A site manager in a hi-vis vest working on a laptop over a desk of drawings

Where it came from

It was not designed in an office
by people guessing at what
contractors need.

It was built for real businesses, module by module, over ten years, in response
to problems those businesses actually had. Every module exists because a
live contracting business needed it on a real job, with money attached.

In 2016: Work began on a system for Electrical & Mechanical Services (UK) Ltd, a UK temporary site services provider. It supplies temporary power and site electrics, water, welfare and hygiene to construction sites. It started small and grew module by module for a decade, as the business hit problem after problem and each one was solved properly rather than worked around. It runs that business today.
In 2023: A second system was built for SME Building Services, a UK building services contractor, with a field app for site teams and a portal for their clients. It runs that business today, across 48 active users and 120 projects.
Why that matters more than any feature: Any supplier can claim their software is flexible. Unibuild can demonstrate it. Genuinely different businesses, in different parts of the industry, run on it right now, and they use modules the others have never switched on. That is evidence rather than assertion, and you can interrogate it module by module in the demonstration.
Bringing it to market: The commercial insight is that the next contracting business has most of the same problems. Not all of them, and not in the same shape, which is why the platform is tailored rather than sold as it stands. But enough of them that starting from Unibuild is years ahead of starting from nothing.

Your four options

Four ways to run a contracting business, and where each one fails.

Each of these is a legitimate choice for some businesses. Here is where each one fails, and where Unibuild sits. The buyer's guides go further for a firm of five to fifty people and for a subcontractor, and what it is worth is worked out on its own page.

Spreadsheets, paper
and WhatsApp

Option 1

The most common setup by far, and it works until the firm outgrows it. The spreadsheet is not the problem.

They do not notify anybody
They do not hold a photograph or a signature
They do not produce a certificate
They stop working when the person who built them is on holiday

Where it failsFragility

Off the shelf job
management software

Option 2

Cheaper to start, faster to implement, and genuinely good at the narrow slice it covers. It loses on fit rather than on quality.

Excellent at jobs, dispatch and invoicing
Leaves you running spreadsheets alongside it
For valuations, plant, training, compliance, subbie accounts
You end up paying twice and reconciling both

Where it failsCoverage

A bespoke build
from scratch

Option 3

The right idea, taken the slowest way round. Bespoke is what a contractor actually needs. Starting from an empty screen makes it a long, expensive and risky project, where you pay to have basic things invented again.

Months writing a specification nobody has time for
A long silence before anything works
A system that matches the document, not the business
Most of the cost is spent on the parts that already exist

Where it failsRisk and cost

Doing
nothing

Option 4

The real competitor for most firms, and the one worth taking seriously, because the cost of the current situation is usually invisible.

The administrator's week
The disputed variation
The job that lost money quietly
The certificate that could not be produced

Where it failsInvisible cost

The four options a UK contractor actually chooses between, and the verdict on each
Option	Upfront cost	Time to live	Fit to your process	Covers the whole business	The verdict
Spreadsheets, paper and WhatsApp	None	Already running	Exact, until the person who built it leaves	No: no notification, photograph, signature or certificate	Fragility
Off the shelf job management software	Low	Fast	Partial: you adapt to it	No: valuations, plant, training, compliance and subbie accounts stay outside	Coverage
A bespoke build from scratch	High	Months	Exact, if the specification was right	Eventually, after paying to reinvent the parts that already exist	Risk and cost
Doing nothing	None	Not applicable	Not applicable	No	Invisible cost
Unibuild	One flat monthly fee covers everything, no per-seat charge	About two weeks, migration included	Exact: built to your process on a core already in daily use	Yes: one login, one set of records, with a client portal for your clients	Bespoke fit, with most of the risk already retired

Where we sit Bespoke, with most of the risk already retired You do not bend to the software, it is built to you

What that means for you

Both halves have to be
true at once.

The proven half: The platform is already built, already working and already carrying real businesses every working day. You are not funding an experiment. In the demo you see a system that has processed thousands of timesheets and clock-in records, hundreds of purchase orders and quotations, and a decade of measured valuations. Real data, not a slide deck.
The bespoke half: Every contracting business works differently: your approval limits, your document templates, your trades, your client reporting, your compliance regime, your words for things. Unibuild is shaped to match yours, and anything you need, we build. That work is inside the monthly fee rather than a change request you pay for afterwards. You never bend your process to fit our screens.
Neither off the shelf nor from scratch: It is not a generic product you adapt to. Nor is it a build from an empty screen, with the cost, the risk and the two-year timescale that brings. It is a working platform, shaped to your firm.
Where it fits: Off the shelf software is quick to start and rarely fits, so spreadsheets grow up alongside it. A bespoke build fits, but costs a fortune and takes years. Unibuild gives you the fit of bespoke with most of the risk already retired, and we can show you two finished ones.

A supervisor on a quayside checking a dashboard on a laptop

The proof, side by side

Two of the featured firms. One platform.
Neither uses it the same way.

Each column is a real firm running on Unibuild today. What each one
switched on says as much as the totals, and a sceptical reader can check
it at a glance.

Deployment one

Temporary site services

Temporary power, water, welfare and hygiene to construction sites. Live since 2016.

Runs on

Estimating build ups
Price lists and rate libraries
Kits and markup classes
Rate valuations
Onsite quotes
Bin locations
Deliveries and collections
Repairs and damage recharge
Payment applications
Aged debt by manager
Custom invoicing
Test mode sandbox

Never switched on

Client portal
Maintained assets and PPM
Gas safety records
Fire assets and fire doors
PAT testing
Site diaries
Call-outs
Day works
Subcontractor management
Near miss reporting

Deployment two

Building services contractor

Mechanical, electrical and air conditioning, roughly fifty staff, with a field app and a client portal. Live since 2023.

Runs on

25+ module field app
Client portal and client app
QR clock-in
Maintained assets and PPM
Gas safety records
Fire doors
PAT testing
Site diaries
Progress photographs
Subcontractor management
Automatic insurance suspension
Training matrix and e-learning

Never switched on

The pricing library
Rate valuations
Deliveries and collections
Bin locations and kits
Repairs and damage
Emergency lighting
Water testing and filter changes

What the contrast shows

Two of the featured businesses use opposite halves of the same system, each of them successfully. That is the evidence your business can be fitted without a rebuild. It also means that in a demonstration, we show you each capability in the deployment where it carries real records.

The hard questions

Asked by every
serious prospect.

How do we know it will fit our business?

Because businesses that work almost nothing alike already run on it. Take two of the featured ones. One supplies temporary power, water and welfare to construction sites. It tenders on measured rates, values work on site every week, and moves plant between a central store and dozens of live jobs. The other is a building services contractor whose priorities are field evidence, compliance registers and keeping clients informed. They use different halves of the same platform. The first has never switched on the client portal. The second has never switched on the stores and delivery system. That is not a compromise, it is the design.

Who already runs on Unibuild?

UK trade businesses of very different kinds, every working day since 2016. The case studies feature some of them, running their entire commercial operation on Unibuild. They use it differently, and neither was asked to work our way. We do not sell a fixed product shown to a lot of people. We build the platform into the shape of the business in front of us, and yours is built to how you already work.

We have had a software project fail before. Why would this be different?

Many contracting firms have, and the pattern is usually the same: months spent writing a specification, a long silence, then a system that matches the document rather than the business. Unibuild starts from the opposite end. There is a working platform to look at on day one, so the conversation is about what is different about your business rather than what you require in the abstract. Reacting to something real is a task busy people can do well. Writing a specification from a blank page is not.

Can we start with only two or three parts of it?

Yes, and that is the normal route. Most businesses start with the two or three areas that hurt most and add the rest later. The purchase order software went into a live deployment in February 2026 and carried 879 orders within five months. Adding a module to a running business is routine, not a project.

Will it replace our accounts package?

Your accounts package stays, and Unibuild runs the job up to it. It handles the operation through to the application for payment, then feeds your accounts system. Unibuild syncs with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50, and other systems are connected on request.

How long until we are live, and is there a setup fee?

Most firms go live in about two weeks, in phases, with data migration included. There is no setup fee. One flat monthly fee covers everything, with no per-seat charge.

What happens to our data and our system if the relationship ends?

Your data is yours to export throughout the agreement, not only on the way out, so leaving never means losing the record. On leaving, we hand back a clean dataset within five working days. There is no minimum term and no exit fee. We set out continuity and escrow arrangements in writing, in the contract, before you commit. The platform has been maintained and extended continuously for ten years across the businesses that run on it.

Test the argument