In last month’s “Winning the Highways Market” webinar, highways bidding expert Pippa Birch and BidStats’ Chris Williamson tackled common myths about this important sector and offered practical advice for firms weighing the move from subcontracting to winning their first direct contract.

Following the positive response to the webinar, we asked Pippa and Chris to draw on their combined 30+ years in bidding and procurement to distil the session’s insights into a straightforward guide for breaking into the highways market.

With an annual spend of nearly £50bn on building, maintaining, and operating roads and associated infrastructure, this highways market offers rich potential for companies looking to expand their revenues and make a positive impact on the nation’s transport network.

But the size and complexity of the highways ecosystem can seem daunting for businesses keen to break into the market .

In this guide, we’ll share some of the key insights and strategies we’ve learned to demystify the sector and signpost a roadmap to highways success. We’ll explore the current market landscape, outline the primary routes to market, provide tips on building robust relationships and credibility, discuss how to focus your offering on quality and customer needs, and share a proven process for effective bidding. Our aim is to equip you with the knowledge and tools to confidently plot your highways journey and accelerate your growth.

The Current Highways Landscape

The UK highways market is continually evolving, shaped by major policy initiatives, shifting investment priorities, and the drive to deliver a safe, sustainable, and efficient road network. Understanding the current landscape is an essential first step in identifying the most attractive opportunities for your business.

At the highest level, National Highways (formerly Highways England), the government-owned company responsible for England’s motorways and major A roads, is a key player, delivering over £27.4bn of investment through the second Roads Investment Strategy (RIS2) from 2020–2025. This includes major projects like the Lower Thames Crossing, the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine upgrade, and the A303 Stonehenge tunnel.

But the market extends far beyond National Highways, with other crucial buyers including ‘mega-transport’ authorities like Transport for London, devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and over 150 local authorities responsible for maintaining local road networks. Each has its own distinct priorities, processes, and pipelines.

To navigate this complex landscape, it’s important to:

• Understand the key investment programmes, policy drivers, and funding streams shaping national and regional pipelines.
• Map the major buyers, influencers, delivery bodies and suppliers in your target geographies. The Public Highways Power Players report can be of some help here.
• Identify potential opportunities aligned to your capabilities, using tools like the National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline.
• Monitor procurement portals and engage early with buyers to influence specifications where possible.
• Analyse past spending patterns and forward procurement plans to spot longer-term opportunities.

By combining proactive market analysis with a sharpened focus on the areas where your business is best placed to compete, you can cut through the complexity and develop a targeted highways growth strategy.

Routes to Market

Once you’ve understood the overall landscape, the next step is to determine the optimal route to market for your specific business.

Broadly, there are four main pathways for delivering highways works:

1. Direct contracting: Winning and delivering contracts as a main contractor, either as a single entity or as part of a joint venture or consortium. This approach offers the highest potential margins and control over project delivery but also involves taking on the most risk and contract management responsibility. To succeed in direct contracting, you’ll need strong financial standing, a compelling track record, and robust project and commercial management capabilities.

2. Subcontracting: Aligning with tier 1 contractors to deliver smaller, specialised packages of work as part of a wider supply chain. Subcontracting can offer a lower-risk entry point for building a track record and relationships in the highways space. Many SMEs find subcontracting a useful stepping stone to develop the skills and references needed to move into direct contracting over time.

3. Frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems (DPS): Securing places on major buying frameworks or DPS arrangements that give you access to a pipeline of opportunities and streamlined purchasing with pre-qualified buyers. Frameworks and DPS options are increasingly popular across highways authorities and can offer a more predictable route to winning work, but they also tend to be highly competitive and require significant upfront investment in the selection process.

4. Specialist consultancy and advisory: Providing niche technical, advisory or design services to support highways programmes and projects. This pathway is particularly suited to smaller, specialised firms who can offer value-adding expertise in areas like planning, engineering design, environmental assessments, project controls, and asset management.

The right route – or mix of routes – for your business will depend on a range of factors specific to your size, capabilities, risk appetite, and growth ambitions. Generally, most businesses begin in the subcontracting and consultancy space to build their reputation before progressing to frameworks and direct contracting. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and many successful firms operate a portfolio model across multiple pathways.

To determine your optimal route to market, consider:

• Your current scale, financial standing, and risk profile.
• Your track record and references in relevant areas.
• The types of projects and services where you have a competitive advantage.
• Your appetite for contract management and project delivery responsibility.
• Alignment with your wider business strategy and investment plans.
• Potential partnership and collaboration opportunities to shore up any capability gaps.

It’s worth taking time to carefully weigh the pros and cons of different approaches and to test your thinking with expert advisors or industry peers who have navigated similar journeys.

Building Connections and Credibility

The highways sector is very much a relationships business, where reputation and credibility are the foundation of successful business development. Buyers want to work with suppliers they trust to deliver on time, on budget, and to a high standard. In a complex, high-risk environment, a strong network and track record go a long way.

Building your profile and partnerships in the highways space should be an ongoing priority, not just something you do when chasing a specific tender. Some proven ways to raise your credibility include:

• Attending highways conferences, networking events, and trade shows to make new connections and learn about market developments. The annual Highways UK event is a must-attend fixture in the calendar.
• Contributing thought leadership content like whitepapers, articles, and webinars to demonstrate your expertise and ideas. Look for opportunities to speak at industry forums and panels.
• Joining relevant trade associations like the Civil Engineering Contractors Association and the Highways Term Maintenance Association to access member networks, events, and advocacy support.
• Proactively reaching out to potential partners and mentor organisations who can help you build scale and fill capability gaps. Many tier 1 contractors are open to collaborating with smaller specialist firms.
• Collecting case studies, testimonials, and references that evidence your ability to deliver. Ask satisfied clients for referrals and recommendations.
• Participating in early market engagement and consultation exercises to help shape buyer specifications and position for future opportunities.
• Investing in relevant accreditations and certifications, like FORS, CLOCS or ISO standards, to evidence your credentials and systems.

At a minimum, make sure your website and marketing collateral are up-to-date and tailored to the highways space, with relevant case studies and value propositions. Consider investing in some targeted thought leadership campaigns or sponsoring highways events to boost your brand visibility.

Focus on Quality, Compliance and Customers

Highways authorities are looking for supply chain partners who can reliably deliver high-quality, compliant, and customer-focused works. They want to be confident you have the right people, systems, and processes in place to meet their desired outcomes and manage risk effectively.

Key areas to focus on include:

• Investing in training, qualifications, and professional development for your teams, in line with industry accreditation frameworks and emerging skills like carbon management or digitisation.
• Implementing rigorous health, safety, and compliance management procedures, particularly in safety-critical areas like traffic management, excavations, and temporary works.
• Developing robust quality assurance and quality control systems to meet relevant National Highways and international standards.
• Building your digital and data management capabilities to provide real-time reporting and progress tracking to clients.
• Ensuring your people understand and are motivated by customer requirements and priorities across safety, cost, delivery, and sustainability.

Equally, it’s important that your tender submissions bring your quality and customer focus to life in a compelling way. Highways bids are often technical and dry, so proposals that are well-structured, easy to evaluate, and clearly focused on benefits to the client really stand out.

If you’re new to highways bidding or lack a specialist in-house bid team, it’s worth considering professional bid writing support as an investment in your growth. External partners can help you translate your solutions into winning proposals, improving your success rates and return on bidding costs. Look for providers with specific highways sector experience and a track record of results.

Planning Your Bidding Approach

Effective bidding is equal parts art and science, requiring a mix of strategic thinking, creativity, and robust process. Poor bid planning can result in wasted time and resources chasing the wrong opportunities, or worse, winning contracts you lack the capability to deliver.

A structured bid management approach should encompass:

• Rigorously qualifying potential opportunities against clear bid/no-bid criteria covering strategic alignment, deliverability, risk profile, and projected margin.
• Researching and engaging early with buyers to influence specifications and gather intelligence.
• Storyboarding your win themes, discriminators, and solution approach to meet all compliance and quality requirements.
• Standing up a fit-for-purpose bid team with representation from all key workstreams and functions.
• Developing a clear bid plan with milestones, role assignments, and review gates.
• Ensuring authors have access to relevant boilerplate content, graphics, and past responses.
• Conducting robust reviews to stress-test your solution, commercial offer, and risk mitigations.
• Professionally designing your submission in line with all instructions and style guidelines.
• Submitting your bid well in advance of the deadline and preparing for any clarification interviews.

It may seem like a lot of effort, but in our experience, this level of bid discipline is a key factor in consistently winning profitable work. It ensures you make objective decisions about where to focus, put your best foot forward in every submission, and reflect your quality focus throughout the process.

One technique we often recommend is conducting a “black hat” review of your draft proposal, where someone independent plays the role of a sceptical evaluator and actively tries to find faults or score you down. This helps identify any gaps or weak spots you can address before submitting.

Finally, don’t forget to actively seek feedback after every bid, whether successful or not. Most buyers are happy to provide comments on areas of strength and improvement, which you can feed into your continuous development as a highways supplier.

Positioning Your Firm For Highways Success

Winning a share of the multi-billion pound highways market is no easy feat, but the prize is well worth the challenge for ambitious businesses. By deeply understanding the sector landscape, choosing your optimal routes to market, investing in relationships and credibility, focusing on quality and customer needs, and executing a robust bidding strategy, you can position yourself for highways success.

The road may be long, but every journey starts with a single step. With a clear roadmap and the right support and guidance, you have every chance of becoming a trusted, high-performing supplier to this demanding yet rewarding market. The opportunities are there for the taking – what actions will you prioritise to accelerate your highways growth journey?