Pagabo Is No Longer Just a Framework Provider. It’s Becoming the Operating System for UK Public Construction
Pagabo has opened bidding on a £5bn National Framework for Major Works, the first big building deal under its new 10-year tie-up with Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation. It launches in October, runs four years, and is structured around the Procurement Act 2023’s shift from cheapest-wins to most-advantageous-wins. For contractors, that means new evaluation rules. For the ConTech crowd, it means the Pagabo+ digital platform is about to push pipeline data, call-offs and KPI reporting into one place at scale.
£5bn of public sector building work just hit the market, and the way it gets carved up will look different from what UK contractors are used to. Pagabo has fired the starting gun on its third-generation National Framework for Major Works, with bids due 22 June and a go-live in October. It is the first major building framework under Pagabo’s new 10-year partnership with Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO), which steps in as contracting authority.
What makes this one worth paying attention to is not the headline number. It is the operating model underneath: a digital platform handling pipeline visibility and KPI reporting, a brand new tender evaluation standard from the Procurement Act 2023, and a four-year run that sets the tone for how UK public building work gets bought for the rest of the decade.
Table of contents
What this framework actually is
The MAT shift, and why it matters
Pagabo+ and the platform layer
Who stands to win, and who gets squeezed
Framework structure at a glance
FAQs
What this framework actually is
A £5bn pipeline split nine ways
Pagabo’s National Framework for Major Works runs as a closed agreement across five main lots, with regional coverage across the four UK nations. Lot 1 splits into five sub-lots covering “collaborative partner” roles: Delivery, Sustainability and Quality for England and Wales, plus MAT lots for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each Lot 1 sub-lot will see a single contractor appointed.
Lots 2 to 5 are organised by project value: £5m to £15m, £15m to £30m, £30m to £60m, and £60m+. Each appoints up to nine contractors per region. That gives clients a meaningful pool to call off from while keeping the field tight enough that contractors are not bidding into a 30-firm scrum on every job. Eligible clients include local authorities, NHS trusts, housing providers, education estates and blue light services, and the previous generation of this framework already delivered over £3bn of public sector work.
The MAT shift, and why it matters
Cheapest does not win anymore
Jason Stapley, Pagabo’s chief procurement officer, called this the first framework the firm is bringing to market under the new procurement regulations, and that line is doing a lot of work. The Procurement Act 2023 went live in February 2025 and replaced the old Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) standard with Most Advantageous Tender (MAT). The “economically” got dropped on purpose.
MAT lets contracting authorities weight social value, sustainability, local employment and innovation alongside price. For contracts over £5m, the act also requires authorities to set and publish at least three KPIs and report on supplier performance annually. Bid teams that have spent years optimising for the cheapest credible number now need to retool around outcome storytelling, social value calculation, and provable delivery KPIs. Firms that already track project ROI and bidding performance as core operating data will have a structural edge. We have written before about why most contractors never get there, and MAT is going to make that gap more visible.
This is the first framework we are bringing to market in partnership with YPO under the new procurement regulations.Jason Stapley, chief procurement officer, Pagabo
Pagabo+ and the platform layer
The framework is also a software product
The framework runs through Pagabo+, the firm’s digital platform handling pipeline visibility, call-offs, performance monitoring and compliance. Every project routed through this £5bn pipeline gets logged, tracked, KPI-scored and reported through one system, for both clients and suppliers.
This is the part most construction news coverage will skip past, but it is arguably the more interesting story for the ConTech crowd. The Procurement Act 2023’s transparency rules push huge amounts of structured data into the public domain: pipeline notices 18 months ahead, KPI publication, contract notices throughout the lifecycle. That is a real opening for analytics tools, bid-intelligence startups and AI-driven tendering platforms to build on top of standardised public data flows in a way that simply was not possible under the old regime. It is the direction smart investors think construction tech is heading: tools that own the workflow, not tools that bolt on to it.
Who stands to win, and who gets squeezed
Three groups to watch
- Mid-market regional contractors with strong social value stories. The MAT shift is a genuine opening if you can credibly evidence local employment, apprenticeships, carbon reduction and quality outcomes.
- ConTech firms in bid-intelligence, KPI tracking and social value measurement. Demand for tools that help contractors structure MAT submissions just went up. Same for tools helping public clients evaluate them.
- Bottom-of-the-market price-cutters. Squeezed. The race to the cheapest tender was a survival strategy for some thin-margin firms. That race is now structurally less winnable on Pagabo’s £5bn pipeline.
One more thing worth flagging: this comes hot on the heels of the £4.2bn national civils and enabling works framework Pagabo and YPO announced the week before. Together that is nearly £10bn of public sector pipeline being procured under a single 10-year partnership, all running through the same platform. It is hard to overstate how much that consolidates Pagabo’s position in UK public procurement.
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Join 2500+ ReadersFramework structure at a glance
Lot breakdown by value, region and award model
| Lot | Scope | Region | Value band | Contractors appointed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1a | Collaborative Partner: Delivery | England & Wales | £5m+ | 1 (single partner) |
| 1b | Collaborative Partner: Sustainability | England & Wales | £5m+ | 1 (single partner) |
| 1c | Collaborative Partner: Quality | England & Wales | £5m+ | 1 (single partner) |
| 1d | Collaborative Partner: MAT | Scotland | £5m+ | 1 (single partner) |
| 1e | Collaborative Partner: MAT | Northern Ireland | £5m+ | 1 (single partner) |
| 2 | Projects | UK-wide | £5m to £15m | Up to 9 per region |
| 3 | Projects | UK-wide | £15m to £30m | Up to 9 per region |
| 4 | Projects | UK-wide | £30m to £60m | Up to 9 per region |
| 5 | Projects | UK-wide | £60m+ | Up to 9 per region |
FAQs
Tender submissions are due 22 June, with the framework scheduled to launch in October. More detail is on the Pagabo tender portal. (Source)
YPO is a public sector buying organisation owned by local authorities, which gives it the legal standing to act as the contracting authority under the Procurement Act 2023. Pagabo runs the framework and the digital platform; YPO holds the procurement vehicle. The two firms are tied into a 10-year strategic partnership. (Source)
Under the old MEAT (Most Economically Advantageous Tender) rules, price carried significant weight in award decisions. Under Section 19 of the Procurement Act 2023, the new MAT (Most Advantageous Tender) standard lets contracting authorities weight broader factors like social value, sustainability, innovation and quality alongside price. For contracts over £5m, authorities must also publish at least three KPIs and report annually on supplier performance. (Source)
They are companion frameworks under the same 10-year Pagabo and YPO partnership. The £4.2bn deal covers civils, rail, highways, energy and enabling works in 13 lots. The £5bn major works framework covers buildings. Together they represent close to £10bn of public sector pipeline, all running through Pagabo+. (Source)
The lot structure gives a range of firms a route in. Lots 2 and 3 (£5m to £30m projects) are within reach of strong regional and mid-market contractors. The Procurement Act 2023 also requires contracting authorities to consider barriers SMEs face and reduce them where possible. Lots 4 and 5 are where tier-ones will compete hardest. (Source)
Construction Enquirer: Pagabo starts race for new £5bn major works framework
Construction Enquirer: Pagabo and YPO £4.2bn civils mega-framework
Procurement Act 2023, Section 19: Award of public contracts
Pagabo In-tend tender portal
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