IN Brief:
- The four-year framework is expected to begin in January 2027.
- Five value bands will cover projects ranging from below £500,000 to £15m.
- The procurement is intended to improve access to public work for regional contractors.
Pagabo is preparing to launch procurement for a national medium works framework with an anticipated value of £1.5bn, creating a four-year route for public-sector construction projects worth up to £15m.
Invitations to tender are scheduled to be issued on 1 September 2026, ahead of the framework’s planned start in January 2027. Managed on behalf of contracting authority The Education Alliance, the agreement will be available to public bodies across the UK.
Five value bands will divide the workload by project size. Lot 1 will cover schemes worth up to £500,000, while the remaining lots will span £500,000 to £1m, £1m to £4m, £4m to £8m, and £8m to £15m.
By separating projects into defined financial bands, Pagabo aims to place contractors against businesses with more comparable turnover, capacity, and delivery records. Regional companies capable of undertaking substantial public work should consequently face fewer barriers created by national frameworks designed predominantly around tier-one contractors.
Pagabo said the current generation of the framework has supported more than 300 projects, while the two previous iterations have generated a combined portfolio worth approximately £658m.
David Llewellyn, construction and infrastructure director at Pagabo, said: “As regional contractors continue to face a visibility challenge, this iteration of the Medium Works framework will give local suppliers the visibility they need to connect with the right opportunities.”
According to Llewellyn, the framework has been structured to give public clients greater supplier choice while providing local and regional contractors with more accessible routes into public procurement.
Public authorities increasingly rely on multi-supplier agreements to maintain delivery capacity across education, healthcare, housing, civic estates, decarbonisation, and local infrastructure. Once suppliers have completed financial, technical, and compliance assessments, individual schemes can progress through direct awards or mini-competitions without recreating an entire procurement exercise.
Those efficiencies have gained importance as public clients contend with limited procurement resources and a widening set of regulatory obligations. Framework appointment does not, however, guarantee work, leaving contractors to weigh substantial bidding costs against an uncertain volume of direct awards and secondary competitions.
A five-band structure should reduce some of that imbalance, particularly where project requirements sit comfortably within the resources of established regional contractors. It could also help public bodies retain more expenditure within local economies instead of defaulting to national contractors for schemes that do not require their scale.
Regionalisation has become a more prominent feature of public procurement, with the £1.2bn SCAPE regional framework tender similarly combining standardised procurement with geographically distributed delivery capacity.
Although these frameworks can open significant pipelines, qualification increasingly depends on evidence extending well beyond technical construction competence. Carbon reporting, social value, prompt payment, building-safety capability, digital information management, supply-chain oversight, and workforce development now carry considerable weight during evaluations.
Larger contractors usually maintain central teams dedicated to producing that material, whereas regional businesses may rely on operational managers who are also responsible for active projects. Unless tender documentation remains proportionate, the administrative cost of framework bidding can work against the broader supplier access that the lot structure is intended to create.
Pagabo will also need to balance competition against deliverability when deciding how many suppliers to appoint. A narrow list can restrict client choice and regional coverage, yet an overcrowded framework may provide contractors with little realistic prospect of recovering their bidding investment.
Where dozens of businesses compete repeatedly for every project, much of the procurement burden merely shifts from the framework award into project-level mini-competitions. Direct-award criteria, regional allocations, supplier rotation, and performance measurement will therefore influence whether the arrangement produces meaningful efficiencies.
The £15m upper limit places the framework across a large section of the public construction market. School extensions, healthcare facilities, estate refurbishments, civic buildings, decarbonisation schemes, and medium-scale new developments can all fall within its scope.
Projects at the upper end of that range commonly require developed design, specialist compliance, substantial mechanical and electrical content, and coordinated supply chains, yet they remain within the delivery capacity of established regional contractors. A procurement model that recognises that capacity could strengthen competition without compromising technical assurance.
September’s invitation to tender will provide fuller details on geographic divisions, supplier numbers, evaluation weightings, and award procedures. Those provisions will determine whether the £1.5bn programme creates a workable regional pipeline or concentrates expenditure among a limited group of national incumbents.
