Why tenders now ask who your senior women are
There's a question turning up in tenders that a lot of construction and engineering firms aren't ready for.
It isn't about price. It isn't about programme. It isn't even about safety.
It's about who leads your business — and whether any of them are women.
Sometimes it's asked outright. More often it sits inside a social value question, a prequalification form or a client's supply chain charter. Either way, the buyer wants evidence, and "we're an equal opportunities employer" no longer counts as evidence.
If you've felt this shift and wondered where it came from, this is for you.
What buyers are actually asking
It shows up in three places.
Central government contracts. Since 1 October 2025, government buyers have had to use the Social Value Model when they award contracts. Social value carries at least 10% of the marks. One thing a buyer can score is how you "identify and tackle inequality in employment, skills and pay" among the people working on the contract. The examples it gives include clear routes of progression, open pay and promotion, and positive action where groups are missing from certain pay grades.
Prequalification. The Common Assessment Standard is the question set much of the industry now uses to prequalify suppliers. It has a whole section on Fairness, Inclusion and Respect. Public bodies are expected to use it, and a growing list of contractors and clients accept it.
Private clients and main contractors. There's no rule book here, which makes it harder to see coming. One contractor we work with found that a growing share of tenders, public and private, wanted documented evidence of women in senior roles — and expected to see it at bid stage.
None of these says "name your senior women" in so many words. Add them together, though, and that's the question.
Why now
Three pressures have arrived at the same time.
Public money now comes with public expectations. Government wants its spending to do more than get the thing built. It wants to see fair work and wider opportunity in the businesses it pays, and it has written that into how bids are scored.
The industry is short of people. CITB's latest Construction Workforce Outlook says construction needs around 41,200 extra workers every year from 2026 to 2030. Meanwhile women hold 18% of construction jobs — fewer than one in five. You can't close a gap that size while overlooking half the population, and clients know it.
Reporting is getting sharper. Employers with 250 or more staff already publish their gender pay gap. From April 2027 they will also have to publish an action plan showing what they are doing about it. The big clients and contractors above you are being asked harder questions, and questions asked at the top of a supply chain rarely stay there.
You can't fix this the week the tender lands
Here's the uncomfortable part. The buyer isn't asking for a policy. They're asking for people, and for proof.
You can write a policy in an afternoon. You can't credibly move someone into a senior role between a tender arriving and its deadline.
The cause usually isn't what leaders expect, either. When we ran baseline assessments with that same contractor, capability wasn't the problem. The women were experienced and good at their jobs. What held them back was confidence.
That's good news, because confidence can be built. It just takes months, not days.
In that programme, the women's average confidence went from 2.69 out of 5 to 3.77 by the end. Six months later, with us out of the room, it had reached 3.94. Women from that group are now named as senior contacts on bid documents, and several have been identified as successors for senior roles.
So when a buyer asks, good evidence looks like this:
Names. Women in roles the client will actually deal with.
A pipeline. Who is next, and what you are doing to get them ready.
Numbers. Progression, retention and pay, measured before and after.
A track record. Things you have done, not things you intend to do.
Five things to do before the next one
Read your last three tenders again. Find every question about people, inclusion and social value. Mark your own answers honestly.
Count. How many women do you employ, at what levels, and how many have moved up in the last three years?
Ask the women what's in the way. Don't guess. A short baseline survey and a few honest conversations will tell you more than any benchmark report.
Invest in the women you already have. They know your business, your clients and your sites. Developing them is quicker than recruiting, and far more convincing.
Put them in front of clients, then measure. Bids, presentations and site meetings are where senior people become visible. Check progress at the end, and again six months on.
The honest version
Nobody wins work by ticking a box about women. Buyers can tell the difference between a paragraph and a pipeline.
The firms that answer this question well are the ones who started before anyone asked. If that isn't you yet, the next best time is now.
If you'd like an honest look at where your business stands, we'd love a conversation. No pitch. Email monique@wintle-campcoaching.co.uk.
Wintle-Camp Coaching won Best HR/L&D & OD Consultancy at the CIPD People Management Awards 2026 for its Women in Construction work.