How to win commercial flooring contracts

Commercial work can steady a flooring business with bigger packages and repeat clients. But the rules change: you work to someone else's programme, you're paid in stages weeks after the work, money can be held back, and nobody lets you on site until the paperwork is right. Here's what main contractors ask for, and how to get paid once you're in.

1. What changes when you move into commercial work

The flooring is the same job. Almost everything around it changes.

2. Getting on approved supplier lists

Getting onto a main contractor's approved list means prequalification: proving you're safe, competent and insured before anyone sends you a tender.

PQQs and the Common Assessment Standard

PAS 91, the standardised construction prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) published by BSI, has been withdrawn, though some schemes still assess against its criteria. Build UK's Common Assessment Standard (CAS) is the industry-agreed alternative: a recognised assessment body certifies you once a year, desktop or site-based, and a growing list of contractors and clients accept it from any of those bodies.

SSIP and deem to satisfy

SSIP (Safety Schemes in Procurement) is an umbrella body whose member schemes all assess health and safety against the same Core Criteria. Through its deem to satisfy process, a certificate from one SSIP Registered Member can usually be recognised by another, so you needn't repeat a full assessment when a buyer prefers a different scheme.

The main schemes compared

Fees vary with business size or turnover. Before paying, ask the contractors you want to work for which schemes they accept.

What assessors check

SSIP assessments are proportionate to your size and work. Expect to show:

• A health and safety policy signed by your managing director or equivalent, dated within the last 12 months
• Training and qualification records for employees and labour-only subcontractors
• Site-specific risk assessments, method statements and COSHH assessments from the last 12 months
• RIDDOR accident figures and any HSE enforcement in the last five years

CAS goes further, into areas such as environmental, equality, modern slavery, anti-bribery and building safety.

3. Insurance main contractors ask for

• Employers' liability is compulsory in England, Scotland and Wales as soon as you become an employer, with at least £5 million of cover from an authorised insurer. The exceptions are employing only family members or people based outside Great Britain. HSE says someone self-employed for tax may still count as your employee, so take advice if you use subcontract fitters.
• Public liability is generally voluntary, according to HSE, but main contractors commonly require it and set their own minimum cover.
• Anything else the subcontract lists. Read the insurance clause before you price.

4. CSCS cards for floor layers

Build UK says most contractors and clients require construction workers to hold a card carrying the CSCS logo, and it must be the right card for the job.

• Blue Skilled Worker: needs a construction-related NVQ/SVQ Level 2 or a recognised apprenticeship. Valid for five years.
• Experienced Worker: for people with on-the-job experience (normally at least a year in the last three) who are registered on a relevant NVQ/SVQ Level 2 or higher. Valid one year, not renewable.
• Not the Labourer card. CSCS says skilled workers holding one will be refused site access, and the Contract Flooring Association (CFA) says labourer cards are no longer accepted or renewed for floorcovering installers.

Applicants also need the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test, passed within two years at the level CSCS's Card Finder shows. Experienced layers can gain an NVQ through on-site assessment: FITA, the flooring training association co-founded by the CFA and the National Institute of Carpet & Floorlayers, offers support over a minimum of 16 weeks and says CITB funding may be available.

5. RAMS, COSHH and site paperwork

Under CDM 2015, HSE says contractors, subcontractors included, must plan, manage and monitor their own work, check their workers' skills and training, and follow the relevant parts of the construction phase plan. Before you start, expect to provide:

• Risk assessments, which the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require of employers
• A method statement written for this job and this site
• COSHH assessments for hazardous substances, such as some adhesives, primers and smoothing compounds, and dust from cutting or grinding, based on labels and safety data sheets (recorded if you have five or more employees)

See how flooring RAMS software handles job-specific RAMS.

6. How main contractors choose flooring subcontractors

Price gets you considered, but rarely wins on its own. Contractors also weigh up:

• Programme: can you resource the dates, phases and return visits?
• Quality: floors that pass first time, and short snag lists.
• Documents: RAMS and certificates in on time, without chasing.
• Reliability: turning up when you said, and warning early when the base isn't ready.
• Commercial behaviour: clear qualifications and fair variations.

7. Finding work and pricing tenders

Most commercial flooring work comes through main contractors, so start with the firms building near you. Public sector contracts appear on Contracts Finder and Find a Tender (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own portals), where past contracts can show who is winning local work. Register on those contractors' supply chain portals, ask to tender, and price each one properly using our guide to pricing a flooring tender. Flooring estimating software can take the first pass at the drawings.

8. Payment terms, retentions and CIS

Applications and the Construction Act

Most subcontracts pay against a monthly application submitted by a set date, so diary every cut-off. In England, Wales and Scotland, the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (as amended) sets minimum rules for construction contracts, though not for contracts with a residential occupier:

• You're entitled to stage or periodic payments, unless the work is to last less than 45 days.
• The contract must provide for a payment notice, no later than five days after each due date, stating the sum and how it's calculated. That sum must be paid by the final date for payment unless a pay less notice is given in time.
• Pay-when-paid clauses are ineffective unless someone further up the payment chain is insolvent.
• If the notified sum isn't paid, you can suspend work after giving at least seven days' notice.
• Either party can refer a dispute to adjudication at any time.

Where a contract falls short, the Scheme for Construction Contracts applies. This is general information, not legal advice.

Retentions, and the proposed ban

A retention is money held back from your payments as security against defects, released on the subcontract's terms. Consultation responses told the government that retentions are often paid late, in part or not at all. The Commercial Payments Bill, introduced in May 2026, would ban them in construction contracts, set maximum payment terms of 60 days (with limited exemptions) and make late payment interest mandatory. In September 2026 it was still before Parliament, with the ban's timing still to be consulted on.

CIS and the VAT reverse charge

Under CIS, contractors deduct 20% if you're registered and can be verified, 30% if not, and nothing with gross payment status. Deductions aren't taken from VAT or materials you paid for, and count towards your tax and National Insurance. GOV.UK lists carpet fitting among jobs that don't need to register on their own, so check how your mix of work is treated; our CIS guide for flooring contractors has the detail. Between VAT-registered businesses, most construction services reported under CIS also use the VAT domestic reverse charge.

9. Cashflow: don't over-trade

Over-trading means winning more work than your cash can carry. Wages go out weekly; payment arrives after the application cycle, less retention and CIS. Before a big package:

• Forecast the job's cash: wages, materials, application and payment dates, retention and CIS.
• Match your supplier credit terms to when you'll be paid.
• Don't let one main contractor become most of your turnover.
• Know your rights: on late business payments you can claim statutory interest at 8% plus the Bank of England base rate, unless your contract sets a different rate, plus a fixed £40 to £100 recovery charge.

10. Handover, snagging and being easy to work with

The second job is won on how the first one ends. Get each area signed off as you hand it over, protect finished floors and photograph them, close snag lists quickly, hand over care guides and data sheets without being asked, and get variations instructed in writing before you do the work.

11. Your 90-day plan

Days 1 to 30: get ready

• Pick ten target contractors and ask which prequalification schemes they accept
• Check your employers' and public liability cover against what they ask for
• Check every fitter's CSCS card, and register experienced layers for an NVQ
• Refresh your signed health and safety policy, RAMS and COSHH assessments

Days 31 to 60: get approved

• Apply to one scheme they accept; use deem to satisfy if another wants a different one
• Sort CIS registration and reverse charge invoicing
• Prepare a short company profile: recent jobs, photos, your team and their cards
• Register on their supply chain portals and build a cash forecast

Days 61 to 90: win and deliver

• Ask to tender, price carefully and follow up every submission
• Deliver the first package well, and ask for the next one

12. Common mistakes

• Buying several accreditations before asking which ones contractors accept
• Generic RAMS that don't match the job
• Letting insurance or accreditation lapse
• Fitters on site with the wrong CSCS card
• Pricing without reading the payment, retention and contra-charge clauses
• Extra work on a verbal instruction
• Taking on more work than your cash can fund

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