The construction sector has never needed persuading that jobs, apprenticeships and local supply chains constitute genuine social value. On major builds these aren’t an extension to the contract; they're often the reason the community backed it in the first place. Under PPN 026, the sector's understanding of social value remains unchanged, but the weight it carries and the precision of evidence required have increased significantly.
From 1 January 2027, central government contracts of £5 million or more must carry a minimum social value weighting of 20%, double the previous 10%, with detailed technical guidance expected to come this autumn. For a sector where major infrastructure, schools, hospitals and housing programmes routinely clear that threshold, this is not a procurement footnote - it changes how bids get won.
A model built on what construction has already mastered
PPN 026 narrows the Social Value Model down to two outcomes - Good Jobs and Skills - delivered through six Model Award Criteria, replacing the previous model's seventeen. For social value teams in construction, this will feel like familiar territory rather than a new discipline to learn. Reporting on jobs, apprenticeships and local employment across major contracts has been standard practice in this sector for the best part of a decade, arguably longer than in almost any other part of public procurement.
This familiarity is exactly why the change matters. At 10%, a well-written commitment could carry a bid a long way on the strength of intent alone. At 20%, buyers are being asked to weigh social value as seriously as price or technical quality - which means they need to evaluate it with the same rigour. Fewer criteria doesn't mean Social Value is less important.. It means the Government’s focus which used to be spread across seventeen areas is now concentrated entirely on quality jobs and skills, and there is less room for a strong reputation to substitute for specific, verifiable evidence.
What separates a strong response from a standard one
None of the following will be news to an experienced social value lead. What has changed is how much these points now matter to the outcome of the bid, and how directly evaluators will test them.
1. Job quality over job count. The criteria reward fair pay, secure contracts and progression, not headcount. A response that can speak to pay bands, contract security and progression opportunity will consistently outscore one that leads with numbers on site - even where the underlying commitment is just as strong.
2. Apprenticeship delivery tied to contract value. Training weeks and placements per £1 million of spend are becoming the reference point evaluators use to judge whether a commitment is proportionate to the contract, rather than a fixed number pulled from a crib sheet. Regional variation in what 'strong' looks like is real, so this is worth benchmarking properly rather than inheriting a figure from the last bid.
3. Delivery through partners who already exist on the ground. A commitment delivered through an established local college, job centre or training provider is both easier to evidence and harder for a competitor to replicate than one built specifically for the tender. Evaluators are likely to look for additionality, valuing commitments and delivery models that are specifically tailored and created for the unique needs of the bid.
4. KPIs as tender-stage commitments. Contracts over £5 million now require at least one published social value KPI, reported annually, with underperformance being a legitimate ground for exclusion from future procurements. This means job starts, training weeks, and local spend must be built directly into the delivery plan from day one, not retroactively assembled for a year-end report.
5. Hyper-local evidence that targets real needs. ‘People facing barriers to employment' means something different in a coastal town with high youth unemployment than in a city with concentrated skills deprivation. National claims no longer do the job, and town or city-level detail, while better, is starting to look generic next to a response that can point to the employment and skills profile of the actual postcode the contract sits in.
Where some bids still fall short
In our experience, the gap in construction bids is rarely ambition. Experienced teams know what good jobs and skills delivery looks like, and the commitments they make are usually genuine. The gap is evidential. Connecting a commitment to the specific community it will impact, with data precise enough for an evaluator to check it rather than take it on trust.
That is a data problem as much as a bid-writing one. Employment and skills deprivation can vary considerably within the same local authority, let alone the same region, so the geography a claim is pitched at matters as much as the claim itself. Getting that right at LSOA (Lower Layer Super Output Area) or ward level is what increasingly separates a response that scores well from one that simply scores.
This is the specific challenge that Pulse, Neighbourly's social value data tool, is built to tackle. It maps employment and skills deprivation down to LSOA level, so a bid team can show that an apprenticeship commitment or a local hiring pledge is calibrated to the actual profile of the ward the contract sits in, rather than a reasonable-sounding estimate. Used properly, it turns the fifth point above, which is often the hardest of the five to evidence well, into one of the more straightforward ones to get right.
What bid teams can do right now
With technical guidance due this autumn and the January 2027 start date not far behind, there is a real advantage in building this evidence base into delivery plans now, while there is still time to test the approach on live bids, rather than retrofitting it once the guidance lands and every competitor is doing the same thing at once.