Prequalification questionnaires look different every time, but underneath they ask about the same handful of things: who you are, whether you're financially sound, how you manage risk, what you've delivered, and whether you can prove it.
That's good news. It means most of a PQQ can be answered from material you already have, if you've kept it in a form you can reuse. This guide is written mainly for UK contractors and suppliers bidding to public bodies and large private clients. It covers the formats you'll meet, pass/fail versus scored questions, building a reusable content library, tailoring answers so they score, and why good firms still fail.
What a PQQ is, and what it's called now
A PQQ is the selection stage before the tender proper. The buyer uses it to decide who is allowed to bid, not who wins. It checks you're eligible, capable and safe enough to be worth evaluating, and it usually cuts a long list down to a short one.
In the UK you'll meet a few families of questionnaire:
- PAS 91. A British Standards Institution specification that sets out a common set of construction prequalification questions: core company information plus modules on health and safety, environmental management, quality, equality and diversity, and building information modelling. Many main contractors and clients base their supply chain questionnaires on it.
- The public sector Standard Selection Questionnaire (SQ). Under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, central government guidance replaced the old PQQ with a standard SQ for above-threshold procurements. It has three broad parts: supplier information, exclusion grounds, and selection questions on financial standing and technical ability. You'll still see it on procurements that started under the old rules.
- The Procurement Act 2023 regime. Since the Act took effect in February 2025, new procurements in its scope work differently. Suppliers register on the government's Central Digital Platform, keep their core supplier information there (basic details, connected persons, financial information and exclusion grounds) and share it with each buyer rather than retyping it. Buyers then set conditions of participation, which can only relate to legal and financial capacity and technical ability, and the Act sets out mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds.
- Private client questionnaires. Large clients, main contractors and facilities management firms often run their own, through a portal or a spreadsheet. They borrow heavily from PAS 91 and the SQ, then add their own priorities.
Whatever the format, the questions repeat. Your job is to answer the repeats in minutes and spend your time on the parts that are genuinely new.
If you also hold ongoing prequalification accounts (CHAS, Constructionline, SafeContractor, Achilles and the like), the renewal side is covered in The prequalification treadmill.
The usual sections, and where the answers come from
| Section | What they want | Where it usually lives | Typically |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company information | Legal name, company number, address, ownership, parent company | Companies House record, company data sheet | Information only |
| Exclusion grounds | Declarations on convictions, tax, insolvency, past contract failures | Directors, legal records | Pass/fail |
| Financial standing | Accounts, turnover, sometimes ratios or a credit check | Filed accounts, accountant | Pass/fail against a threshold |
| Insurance | Employer's liability, public liability, professional indemnity | Broker certificates | Pass/fail against stated levels |
| Health and safety | Policy, arrangements, competence, incident record | Safety manual, statistics sheet, SSIP certificate | Pass/fail or scored |
| Quality | Quality management, accreditations | Quality manual, ISO certificate | Pass/fail or scored |
| Environmental and carbon | Policy, management system, carbon data | Environmental policy, emissions register | Increasingly scored |
| Social value, equality, modern slavery | Policies, approach, commitments | Policy library | Pass/fail or scored |
| Experience | Comparable contracts, references | Case study library | Scored |
| Technical capability | Resources, key staff, supply chain management | CVs, org chart, procedures | Scored |
Almost nothing in the first eight rows needs to be written from scratch for each bid. The last two need tailoring, but they shouldn't start from a blank page either.
Pass/fail versus scored: know which game you're playing
Most PQQs mix two kinds of question, and they need different effort.
Pass/fail questions set a bar. You clear it or you're out: insurance at the level stated, no relevant convictions, a current health and safety policy, confirmation that you'll meet a contract requirement. There are no extra marks for clearing the bar by a mile, and no partial credit for nearly clearing it.
Scored questions are marked against a published scheme, often a scale such as 0 to 5 with descriptors, and weighted: describe your approach to managing subcontractors, give examples of similar contracts, explain how you manage safety on site.
| Pass/fail | Scored | |
|---|---|---|
| What matters | Accuracy and completeness | Relevance, specificity, evidence |
| Effort | Low, if your data is current | High: this is where bids are won |
| Source | Company data sheet, evidence library | Answer bank plus tailoring |
| Biggest risk | A missing document or wrong figure | A generic answer that scores 2 out of 5 |
Read the instructions for each question before you write anything. Look for "pass/fail", "for information only", "minimum requirement" and the weighting table, then plan your time accordingly. A team that spends a day polishing an information-only company history and an hour on a 20%-weighted experience question has its effort the wrong way round.
Watch the "will you obtain" questions. Insurance questions often say "If not, confirm you will obtain this cover before contract award." If your public liability is £5 million and the buyer asks for £10 million, a clear commitment may keep you in. Check with your broker that it's possible and what it costs before you commit, because you may be asked for proof.
Build a content library, not a folder of old bids
Saving last year's PDF isn't enough: you can't search it, and you can't tell whether it's still true. A useful library has four layers.
Layer 1: a company data sheet
One document holding every fixed fact a PQQ asks for: legal and trading names, company and VAT numbers, addresses, directors and ownership, parent and subsidiary companies, headcount, turnover for the last three years, insurance policies with insurer, limit and expiry, accreditations with scope and expiry, safety statistics for the last three to five years, and standard contacts for tenders, finance and safety.
Fill it once, check it against source documents, and date it. Anyone in the office can then answer the first section of most PQQs in twenty minutes without asking a director.
Layer 2: banked answers
These are your reviewed, reusable responses to the questions that keep coming back: safety management, incident reporting, subcontractor management, quality assurance, environmental controls, training and competence, complaints, equality, modern slavery, data protection, business continuity.
The structure that works (commitment, process, evidence, proof it works, review) and the rules for organising a bank are in The prequalification treadmill, so we won't repeat them. Two PQQ-specific additions:
- Save the question wording and the score. If a buyer published scores or gave feedback, record it against the answer. Over time you'll know which answers actually score well, not just which ones you liked.
- Keep a long and a short version. Word limits vary wildly. A 250-word version of every core answer saves frantic cutting the night before a deadline.
Layer 3: case studies and references
Experience questions carry heavy weighting and are the hardest to produce in a hurry, so write them as you finish jobs, not when a PQQ asks. For each contract worth citing, record:
| Field | Example (illustrative) |
|---|---|
| Client and sector | A London housing association, social housing |
| Contract | Kitchen and bathroom replacements, 120 occupied homes |
| Value and duration | £1.4m, 14 months, completed March 2026 |
| Your role | Principal contractor |
| Why it's relevant | Occupied homes, vulnerable residents, intensive resident liaison |
| What you did | Daily on-site resident liaison officer, weekly progress reports to the client |
| Results | Finished two weeks early, no reportable incidents, residents surveyed at handover |
| Referee | Name, role, contact details, and the date they agreed to act |
| Evidence | Completion certificate, client letter, photos with consent |
Tag each one by sector, contract type, value band and theme (occupied buildings, live sites, heritage) so you can pull the closest matches quickly.
Look after your referees. Ask permission before you name someone, confirm their details every year, and tell them when you've cited them. A referee who has left, or doesn't remember the job, does real damage.
Layer 4: an evidence library
Policies, certificates, accounts and procedures, each with an owner and an expiry or review date; the treadmill post covers the structure. The PQQ-specific rule: every claim in a scored answer should point to something in the library. If an answer says supervisors inspect every site weekly, the library should hold the template and a completed example.
Tailoring: where your time should go
A banked answer is a starting point, not a submission. Evaluators score against their own question and marking scheme, and a perfectly good generic answer can score poorly because it answers a slightly different question.
A five-step tailoring routine
- Break the question into parts. "Describe how you will manage subcontractors, including selection, monitoring and performance management" has three parts. Each needs a visible answer, ideally under its own subheading.
- Read the scoring descriptors. If a 5 requires "contract-specific examples with evidence", a generic description caps you at 3, however well written.
- Find the client's priorities. Re-read the specification and any published strategy. A housing association working in occupied homes cares about residents; a hospital trust cares about infection control and keeping services running.
- Swap in the specifics. Replace general statements with details of this contract: the site, the client's people, the risks you can already see.
- Use their words. If the question says "supply chain", don't answer about "subcontractors" throughout. Make it easy for the evaluator to tick off each point.
A worked example
The question (illustrative): "Describe your approach to health and safety on occupied residential sites. (Max 400 words, weighting 15%.)"
Your banked answer covers your safety management system in general: policy, responsibilities, risk assessment, training, incident reporting. That's a solid core. Tailoring adds:
- Occupied-home risks by name: residents and children near work areas, asbestos in older stock, safe isolation of services, clear escape routes, dust and noise.
- Specific controls: end-of-shift checks that each home is left safe, a resident liaison officer, hot works permits, asbestos surveys before intrusive work.
- A real example: the occupied-homes contract from your case study library, and what happened on it.
- Evidence: the resident liaison procedure and a redacted completed daily check sheet.
Roughly half the final answer comes straight from the bank. The other half is what lifts it from a 3 to a 4 or 5.
Evidence: show, don't assert
"We are committed to the highest standards" appears in every submission and scores nothing. What scores is evidence: documents (current, signed and dated), records (a completed inspection, a toolbox talk register, an anonymised incident investigation), numbers you can back up (incident rates, audit scores, defects at handover) and third-party confirmation (accreditation certificates, client letters).
Follow the attachment instructions exactly. Some buyers want everything in the answer box and ignore attachments; others want named files in a set format. If attachments aren't allowed, quote the key point in your answer and say the document is available on request.
A repeatable process for each PQQ
| Stage | What happens | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Bid/no-bid | Check you meet the minimum requirements and want the work | Director and bid lead |
| 2. Deconstruct | List every question, its type, weighting, word limit and attachments | Bid lead |
| 3. Fixed sections | Company data, insurance, financials, declarations | Office lead |
| 4. Pull and assign | Pull the closest banked answers and case studies; assign scored questions | Bid lead |
| 5. Draft and tailor | Adapt banked answers to this client and question | Writers and subject experts |
| 6. Review | Check against the question, descriptors, word limits and facts | Someone who didn't write it |
| 7. Sign-off | Confirm commitments and sign declarations | Director |
| 8. Submit early | Upload at least a day before the deadline; keep the confirmation | Office lead |
| 9. Learn | Ask for feedback, record scores, update the library | Bid lead |
Clarification questions are part of the process, not a weakness. If a question is ambiguous, ask before the clarification deadline. Answers usually go to all bidders, so don't give away your approach in the question.
Review and sign-off
Two different checks are needed, and one person rarely does both well.
The scoring review. Someone who didn't write the answer marks it against the question and descriptors: does it answer every part, is it specific to this contract, is there evidence, would I give it a 5?
The accuracy review. Every fact, figure and commitment is checked: turnover matches the accounts, insurance limits match the certificates, statistics match the statistics sheet, and nothing promises something the business doesn't do or won't fund.
Then a director signs off the declarations and any new commitments. Declarations usually confirm the information is accurate and complete, and misleading a buyer, even carelessly, can lead to exclusion and lasting damage to the relationship. If you're unsure how an exclusion question applies to you, for example a past contract dispute or an issue at a connected company, take advice rather than guessing.
Common reasons good firms fail PQQs
- Missing the deadline. Portals close to the second. Large uploads at 11:55 are a classic failure.
- Not answering the question asked. A banked answer pasted without tailoring often answers a neighbouring question.
- Missing or wrong attachments. An expired certificate, an unsigned policy, or accounts for the wrong entity.
- Wrong legal entity. The company named on the PQQ, the accounts and the insurance certificates must match. Group structures and renamed companies catch people out.
- Below a financial or insurance threshold, with no clear commitment to meet it or acceptable alternative, such as a parent company guarantee where allowed.
- Exceeding word limits. Evaluators may stop reading at the limit, so your best point in the last paragraph is lost.
- Weak case studies. A £50k job offered as evidence for a £2m contract, or a different sector with no explanation of why it's relevant.
Where AI fits, and where it doesn't
Drafting a first answer from your own past answers and documents is a good use of AI: it's fast, and it's grounded in material you've already approved. It also helps with matching a new question to your closest banked answer, cutting 600 words to 400, and spotting figures that don't match your data sheet.
What it shouldn't do is invent capability you don't have. Every claim in a PQQ can be checked, by an evaluator, a referee or an auditor later, so every draft needs a person to confirm it before it goes out. The better your library, the less there is for anyone, or any tool, to make up.
A good PQQ process turns a blank page into a review task.
Start here
You don't need the whole library before your next bid. Build it in this order:
- This week: create the company data sheet and check it against source documents. It answers the first section of most PQQs.
- On your next PQQ: save every scored answer you write, with the question wording, in a bank grouped by topic.
- As each job finishes: write the case study while the details are fresh, and ask the client contact to act as a referee.
- After every result: record scores and feedback against the answers you used, and improve the weakest before the next bid.
If you only do one thing this quarter, start saving your best answers as you write them. The next questionnaire will be noticeably quicker, and the one after that quicker still.