VOLOCO LLP

Contractor and developer support services for the construction industry This approach will add value and support you with your construction project.

VOLOCO LLP provide flexible and responsive commercial consulting, quantity surveying and project management solutions to the constructing industry. We recognise the cyclical nature of the construction industry and the need for those involved to be responsive to the changing demands on its resources. With this in mind, we provide bespoke Quantity Surveying, Commercial Support, Cost Management, Cont

ractual and Project Management Services tailored to meet the needs of our construction industry clients. We provide support throughout all stages of the construction process from pre-development to post-contract, across all sectors including Commercial, Residential, Healthcare, Education, Leisure and Retail to both Main Contractors and Sub-Contractors. Our core values of professionalism and integrity run throughout each personally managed commission. We aim to provide a market leading bespoke service with dedication to detail combined with decisive action.

28/08/2026

The email says the client has decided to proceed with another contractor, thanks for your interest. Nobody rings back to ask why.

Partly pride. Mostly because by the time it arrives you're three tenders deep into the next lot, and going back over a dead one feels like picking at a scab.

So the estimating hours get written off and you move on, no wiser than you were before you priced it.

On a private job or a subcontract package, nobody has to tell you anything. Most won't. The only way you'll know is to ring the QS or the buyer within the week, whilst your submission is still fresh, and ask where you sat on price and whether anything in the bid put them off.

Then write it down. Client, job type, value, what they said. After a dozen bids you're looking at your own numbers instead of a hunch. Ten out of twelve say you were second on price and you've got a pricing problem.

Ten out of twelve say your programme or your qualifications caused a wobble, and that's a different problem with a different fix.

The calls are uncomfortable. Being told your submission looked thin, or that you were only on the list to make up the numbers, is not a nice hour. Still better than another year of guessing.

If you're bidding regularly and winning less than you should be, book a discovery call and we'll go through your last few tenders with you.

🔗https://book.voloco.co.uk/discovery-call

26/08/2026

80 per cent of the 18,000 pine trees on the Baku Expo City site are being kept. Zaha Hadid Architects have built the whole 198 hectare masterplan round them, and preserving that many mature trees is a good thing to aim at.

On site it turns into roughly 14,000 trees you can't touch. No-dig zones, crane positions you can't use, plant taking the long way round, and a groundworks package priced off a drawing that showed open ground.

By the time the tree protection reaches the trades, it's a clause pointing at an ecology report. It rarely turns up as a line in the bill.

Check what your contract or subcontract says about protected areas and site access restrictions. Then make sure your programme and your price reflect it.

🔗https://www.dezeen.com/2026/08/21/zha-baku-expo-city-masterplan/

25/08/2026

What's the simplest record you've seen make the biggest difference on a project?

21/08/2026

2.4%.

That's the average pre-tax profit the UK's 100 biggest contractors made last year. The biggest, best-resourced firms in the country keeping about £2.40 out of every £100 they turned over.

It's no easier further down the chain. In the latest FMB and CIOB State of Trade Survey, 51% of small and medium sized building companies reported lower profits than expected, or outright losses. And 20% said they fear for the viability of their business. That's one in five worried their business won’t survive despite the same companies reporting that workload was up 22%. They aren't short of work. They're short of what the work should have paid them.

At VOLOCO we've spent years watching good builders construct well and not generate the expected returns because commercial risk was not managed and opportunities were lost.

This is a commercial problem and a commercial problem has a commercial fix.

That's the whole reason VOLOCO exists.

19/08/2026

This is a massive project in a rural Texas county. Grimes County has about 35,000 people in it.

100 million square feet will take an enormous amount of labour, plant and materials, and the logistics plan and site set-up to deliver at that scale is a job in itself. But Elon has a track record of delivering big and bold.

The 3,000 jobs being quoted is the operating headcount once it's running. Nobody has published what it takes to build the thing, and that's the number that's needed to fix a programme.

Same problem on a normal job with smaller numbers. Access, storage, welfare, deliveries, how many bodies you can physically get working in one place.

🔗https://www.dezeen.com/2026/08/10/terafab-elon-musk-spacex-tesla-largest-building/

17/08/2026

VOLOCO is proud to support .

There is support out there 🌞

groups run every Monday 7-9PM (excluding bank holidays) for any man 18+.
⭐️ Call Samaritans free, any time, from any phone, on 116 123
⭐️ SHOUT is a free, confidential and 24/7 text messaging service for anyone in the UK that needs support. Text SHOUT to 85258 for dedicated text support
⭐️ Visit hubofhope.co.uk which is the UK’s largest mental health directory.
If you are in need of urgent support please contact the emergency services.

14/08/2026

There were 2,264 adjudications referred in the UK in the year 2023-2024, the highest number since statutory adjudication began.

Adjudication referrals were up 9% on the year before, with inadequate contract administration and a lack of competence among project participants cited as the leading causes. Adjudication was designed as the exception, a fast route to cash-flow certainty when things go wrong. At this volume, for a lot of firms it's becoming standard practice.

Is adjudication your first move when a dispute stalls, or the last resort after everything else fails?

12/08/2026

A 53-storey tower is obviously going to get people talking. But the more interesting part of Birmingham's latest plans might be what happens at ground level.

The proposed development at 42 High Street would bring 729 build-to-rent homes to a site that has been sitting vacant for years. There would also be shops, restaurants and new public space, with the development intended to create a better link between the city centre and the future HS2 station.

It's a good example of how much can hinge on a development site being brought back into use. The building itself gets the attention, but underneath all those floors are years of design development, planning, procurement and commercial decisions before a contractor even gets on site.

And once construction starts, those decisions don't stop. A project of this size will inevitably involve changes, design development, revised requirements and the occasional surprise. The challenge for contractors is keeping the job moving without allowing those changes to quietly become their problem.

That's the sort of commercial pressure we help contractors deal with at VOLOCO, making sure changes are identified, understood and dealt with properly as the project progresses.

It'll be interesting to see whether this one makes the jump from ambitious plans to a tower on the Birmingham skyline.

🔗https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/contracts/plans-submitted-for-53-storey-birmingham-residential-tower-07-08-2026/

10/08/2026

This month has seen VOLOCO supporting projects across South Wales, the South West and beyond, continuing to provide commercial and design management expertise to clients across the construction sector.

▪️ Continuing our work with Construction, VOLOCO has been providing Design Management support on The Propeller Quarter at Brabazon, Bristol, where testing and commissioning is underway ahead of handover for the first blocks. We're also supporting Construction during the pre-construction phase of a new Premier Inn development in Bath.

▪️ On the Cardiff Arena & Hotel development, we're continuing to support Construction with digital model reviews, remeasurement activities, client change valuations and market testing. Alongside this, we've continued delivering Retained Services support to clients including X Construction Ltd and & Middlesex Wildlife Trust.

▪️ From South Wales to London, we're providing commercial support to Elbrow on a range of cladding projects. We've also continued working alongside the commercial team at Construction, supporting the procurement of subcontractors and subcontract packages on a local school project.

Whether it's Design Management, Quantity Surveying or commercial support, our focus remains the same: providing responsive, flexible expertise that helps our clients deliver successful projects.

If you'd like to discuss how VOLOCO could support your next project, we'd be happy to hear from you.
www.voloco.co.uk

07/08/2026

The profit on most jobs is made or lost before anyone sets foot on site. It comes down to the price.

Under-pricing is one of the most damaging mistakes a contractor can make, and the cruellest, because you do not feel it at the time. The tender goes in on gut feel, a builder's estimate and a bit of "that feels about right". You win the job. It feels like a good day. The damage is already done, you just can’t see it yet.

Then reality arrives. Halfway through, the margin that was supposed to be there simply is not. The quantities were light. Something got missed in the take-off, or there was no proper take-off at all. Now the job is a slog to break even on, and every hour on site is spent chasing a profit that was never priced in.

The hard truth is that a job priced wrong cannot be rescued by working harder. The number was baked in before anyone lifted a tool. You are just discovering it in slow motion.

The fix is not tendering for less work. It is tendering properly. A real take-off, priced against the actual scope, with the risk and the preliminaries accounted for, so the price you win on is a price you can build on and still make money.

That is what VOLOCO does. Twelve years making sure contractors price to win the right work at the right margin, not just to win.

If you suspect you are leaving money on the table before the job even starts, it is worth a conversation.

Book a free 30 minute discovery call here: https://book.voloco.co.uk/discovery-call

You build. We support.

Address

Windhager Building, Tormarton Road, Marshfield
Bristol
SN148SR

Telephone

+441454324111

Website

http://www.voloco.co.uk/

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