How to score higher on Social Value in construction tenders
Updated: 5 days ago
By Roman Bazelchuk | NEC Accredited Project Manager | APMG Project Planning and Control
Founder, NEC Planning Solutions Ltd
Social value in construction tenders scores when the commitment is specific to the contract and provable in delivery: a set number of jobs or training places, a named group, an accountable lead and monthly evidence. Under PPN 026, from January 2027, central government buyers score only good jobs and skills.
Social Value in construction is now a scored, contract-linked requirement on most public procurements, and evaluators have become markedly better at spotting the difference between a commitment that will be delivered and one that will not.
This article explains what scoring well actually requires in 2026, why most tender answers still fall short, and what a jobs-and-skills commitment has to show before an evaluator believes it. If you are looking at the delivery model itself rather than the tender strategy, our Social Value pilot page sets out the full structure.
What the procurement framework now requires
Two models are now in play. PPN 002 governs central government procurements commenced before 1 January 2027, with a minimum 10 per cent social value weighting at award. PPN 026, published by the Cabinet Office on 5 August 2026, replaces it for in-scope procurements commencing on or after 1 January 2027. It raises the threshold to contracts of £1 million including VAT and tiers the weighting: a minimum of 10 per cent from £1 million to under £5 million, and a minimum of 20 per cent at £5 million and above. For works, the Procurement Act 2023 only covers a procurement at or above the works threshold, £5,193,000 including VAT from 1 January 2026, so on construction works the 20 per cent minimum is the one that applies. Buyers may apply more where it is proportionate, and may transition to the new model early.
The structure of the model changed as well as the weighting. PPN 002 ran five Missions with a menu of Outcomes beneath them, and award criterion 6a, under Outcome 6, was the employment and skills route. PPN 026 narrows the whole model to two Outcomes delivered through six Model Award Criteria. Good Jobs covers creating and retaining high quality jobs, fair pay and fair working conditions. Skills covers training, retraining, in-work progression and talent pipelines from underserved communities. Everything else that used to sit in the model, including the environmental, supply chain and crime themes, is gone.
Both models require commitments to be relevant to the contract, reflected in the contract, and monitored through delivery. PPN 026 goes further on the largest contracts: for anything at £5 million or above, the buyer should set at least one social value KPI, and performance against it is assessed at least every 12 months and published. That last clause is the one most bid teams underestimate. It is not enough to state an intention. The commitment needs a delivery mechanism, a reporting route, and an evidence trail that survives publication.
Many regulated industrial clients in water, energy, rail, nuclear, and highways now apply frameworks derived from or aligned to the Social Value Model, including the National TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures) framework to structure Social Value reporting. Weightings on these procurements often run above the 10 per cent minimum, and post-award monitoring has become more structured. The practical effect is that Social Value commitments which cannot be reported against during contract delivery are now exposed at review stage.
Social value in construction tenders: why most answers fail
Evaluators reviewing Social Value responses across multiple procurements see the same patterns repeatedly. The language in weak answers is often passionate and well-intentioned. That is not the problem. The problem is deliverability.
The commitments are not specific to the contract. Generic corporate-level statements about apprenticeships, local employment, or charity days do not score well because they cannot be linked to this contract, this project, this workforce. Evaluators are looking for outcomes that would not happen without this procurement.
There are no measurable targets. Saying "we will create employment opportunities" without specifying a number, a timeframe, a named group, and a baseline gives the evaluator nothing to score against and nothing the contracting authority can monitor.
There is no delivery mechanism. Many commitments are written as aspirations rather than operational plans. The absence of a named lead, a reporting cadence, and a governance structure signals that delivery is uncertain.
The commitments are disconnected from the programme. Social Value activities that cannot realistically happen within the contract timeline, on the project in question, with the resources available, do not score credibly. Assessors are experienced enough to spot commitments that look good on paper but have no operational grounding.
The evidence route is missing. High-scoring answers anticipate the post-award audit question: "If we asked you to show us the evidence at month three, what would you send?" Answers that cannot respond to that question leave the evaluator with nothing to confirm delivery against. The difference between a commitment that decorates a bid and one that changes how the contract is delivered is set out in why most construction social value commitments fail.
What high-scoring social value commitments have in common
The simplest test of a high-scoring Social Value commitment is whether it can survive the following question from an assessor: "How will you deliver this on a live project, and how will you prove it happened?"
Commitments that score well share four characteristics. They are contract-relevant, tied directly to the work being procured rather than to the organisation's broader CSR programme. They are quantified, specifying employment outcomes, training hours, or progression milestones with clear baselines and targets. They are governed, with a named accountable lead, a reporting cadence aligned to the contract's review cycle, and a defined escalation route. And they are auditable, with a clear evidence trail from timesheets and role confirmations through to competency milestones and KPI summaries.
The highest-scoring approach in construction tenders in 2026 is what might be described as operational Social Value: commitments that are embedded within the delivery workforce and the project programme, rather than running alongside them as separate initiatives. For more on how this maps to bid scoring specifically, see our article on what wins in UK industrial construction tenders in 2026.
The tender programme: turning promises into evidence
One of the most frequent reasons construction bids lose points isn't a lack of intent, but a lack of evidence. Evaluators now look beyond the written narrative to see if those commitments are actually reflected in the project's logic.
This is where the tender programme becomes your most powerful scoring tool. If a bid promises local apprentice intake or specific community engagement milestones, but these are absent from the baseline schedule, it creates a "credibility gap." By embedding Social Value directly into your tender-stage planning, you prove that your operational truth and your social commitments are fully aligned from day 1.
Why the jobs-and-skills route scores best
Under PPN 002 the employment and skills route, award criterion 6a, already offered the strongest combination of scoring potential and deliverability for construction contracts. Under PPN 026 it stops being the strongest route and becomes the only one. With the model narrowed to Good Jobs and Skills, a bid that cannot evidence employment and skills outcomes has nothing else to score against.
The reason is structural. Construction faces a documented workforce shortage. The Construction Industry Training Board forecasts the need for around 239,300 additional workers between 2025 and 2029, with project planning and controls among the most under-resourced disciplines. At the same time, independent research shows that the UK labour market contains a pool of qualified displaced professionals, people with degrees and professional experience who remain under-employed or excluded from skilled roles because of barriers such as interrupted careers and no route into live project work.
University of Birmingham research published in 2025 found many displaced professionals in the UK working well below their skill level. This is not a marginal population. It is a skilled talent pool that is not consistently translating into skilled UK project roles, and a direct answer to the supply-side gap in project controls.
A commitment to create paid skilled employment for people facing barriers to work, within a project-critical discipline, on this contract, evidenced monthly, sits squarely inside both Outcomes under PPN 026 and satisfies the requirement for contract-linked, monitored delivery. It is also a commitment that can be costed, scoped and reported, which makes it credible at bid stage and defensible at the annual review that PPN 026 now makes public on larger contracts.
Accountability decides whether a commitment delivers
The distinction between a Social Value commitment that scores and one that delivers is almost always found in the accountability structure rather than the commitment itself.
Most Social Value placements fail not because the person placed is unqualified, but because no one owns the output quality and no one has built the evidence trail before the audit question arrives. The result is a well-intentioned arrangement that looks thin under scrutiny, which is precisely the post-award risk that procurement teams are now alive to.
For a full outline of the pilot structure, governance arrangements, and KPI framework, see our Social Value pilot page.
National TOMs alignment: recording outcomes against a framework
Many contracting authorities and regulated clients use the National TOMs framework to structure Social Value reporting. Where TOMs is adopted, a jobs-and-skills commitment is usually reported through two kinds of measure.
Employment measures count the full-time equivalent people hired on the contract, with separate measures for groups such as the long-term unemployed, young people not in education, employment or training, and disabled people. A role is recorded only where the person meets the measure's definition. Evidence required: employment confirmation, timesheets, role scope and project manager sign-off.
Training measures count weeks of training delivered on the contract, such as accredited courses at Level 2, 3 or 4, and weeks of apprenticeships. Mentoring and assessed work can sit behind them, recorded in line with the client's reporting rules. Evidence required: training and development log, assessed outputs, mentoring record and certificates where applicable.
Proxy values and counting rules vary between clients and platforms, so these should be agreed as part of the contract's Social Value reporting methodology rather than applied generically. The point is that evidence produced as the work is done maps onto these measures without separate parallel activity.
How to write this in a tender
Pick two or three Social Value outcomes that are proportionate to the contract value, relevant to the scope, and deliverable within the project timeline. Generic commitments underperform because they fail the relevance test. For each commitment, state a measurable target, a timeframe aligned to the contract programme, a named lead or accountable function, a reporting mechanism tied to the contract review cycle, and the evidence route.
For a jobs-and-skills commitment under PPN 026, a well-structured tender answer would specify: the number of employment opportunities to be created, the relevant group, the discipline in which those roles sit, how the roles connect to the delivery of this contract, the reporting cadence, and the KPI the buyer will publish performance against. Vagueness on any of those is where scores are lost.
The answer should close with a clear statement of how these commitments will be reported post-award: who produces the evidence, at what cadence, and how it will be presented at contract review meetings. That point is often missing from answers that otherwise score well at bid stage, and it is now what separates a high-scoring commitment from one that creates post-award monitoring risk. For practical guidance on improving tender submissions more broadly, see our article on 5 ways to improve your NEC tender bid.
Summary
Social Value is now a scored, contract-linked requirement on most public construction procurements. From 1 January 2027, PPN 026 sets a minimum 10 per cent weighting between £1 million and £5 million and 20 per cent at £5 million and above, and narrows the model to two outcomes, good jobs and skills. Answers that describe intentions rather than evidence score poorly, because evaluators now test whether a commitment will actually be delivered and measured.
The strongest answer is a jobs-and-skills commitment tied to a named role on the contract, evidenced monthly and reported against a recognised framework. It scores at bid stage because it is specific, and it survives the annual review because it produces records as the work proceeds rather than being reconstructed at the end.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum Social Value weighting on central government construction contracts?
It depends on when the procurement started. Under PPN 002, mandatory for in-scope central government procurements from 1 October 2025, the minimum is 10 per cent. Under PPN 026, for procurements commenced on or after 1 January 2027, it is 10 per cent from £1 million to £5 million including VAT and 20 per cent at £5 million and above. Buyers can apply more where proportionate.
What replaced criterion 6a under PPN 026?
Criterion 6a sat under Outcome 6 of the PPN 002 Social Value Model: create employment and training opportunities, particularly for people who face barriers to employment. It was the usual scoring route for jobs-and-skills commitments on construction contracts. Under PPN 026 the nearest criteria are 1a, creating and retaining high quality jobs, 2a, training and retraining, and 2c, talent pipeline, which rewards building a pipeline for future workforce needs with communities facing deprivation and barriers to employment.
What is the difference between the Social Value Model and TOMs?
The Social Value Model is central government's set of outcomes and award criteria for scoring social value in a tender. Under PPN 026, from 1 January 2027, it holds two outcomes, Good Jobs and Skills, across six award criteria. The National TOMs framework is a separate measurement tool many authorities and regulated utilities use to report outcomes. The two are aligned but not identical.
How do I make Social Value commitments auditable?
The evidence route needs to be defined upfront rather than retrospectively. For employment and skills outcomes, the audit trail typically comprises: timesheets and role confirmation; a training and development log; mentoring and QA activity records; competency milestones; and a monthly evidence snapshot cross-referenced to the contract's KPI set. That pack should be producible at any contract review meeting without requiring additional data collection.
Can a specialist planning consultancy support Social Value delivery on a live project?
Yes, if the commitment is a managed delivery service rather than a token addition. A project controls role on the contract, doing real programme work and evidenced monthly, is contract-linked employment that can be reported against the jobs and skills criteria and relevant TOMs measures. What matters to the buyer is that the work is real and the evidence is produced as it happens.
What should I avoid when writing Social Value in a tender?
Avoid commitments that are generic, unquantified, or disconnected from the contract. Avoid aspirational language that has no operational grounding. Avoid commitments with no named lead and no reporting mechanism. And avoid leaving the evidence route undefined. Evaluators now anticipate what post-award monitoring will look like, and answers that cannot answer that question score lower at bid stage and create delivery risk thereafter.
Where can a contractor get help writing social value into a tender?
Bid writers and social value consultants can draft the answer, and the buyer's tender documents set out which model and award criteria it will score against. The help that holds up comes from whoever will deliver the commitment, because an answer written without the delivery team tends to promise outcomes that operations cannot evidence at the first annual review.
About the author
Roman Bazelchuk is the Founder of NEC Planning Solutions Ltd, a UK project planning and controls consultancy supporting contractors with NEC programme compliance, compensation event assessments and live project controls. He is an NEC Accredited Project Manager and holds the APMG Project Planning and Control qualification, with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and postgraduate training in Planning and Control.
NEC Planning Solutions provides contract-aware planning support through a QA-governed delivery model, helping project teams keep programmes accepted, current and commercially useful from tender through to live delivery.
Arrange a consultation
Social value the part of your next bid you are least sure you can deliver? We will test the commitment before it goes in. The first consultation is 30 minutes with Roman Bazelchuk, Director, confidential, with no documents needed in advance. Email info@necplanningsolutions.co.uk or call 0330 223 7709. Our social value offer for bid teams is set out here.
