Cardiff Facilities Management Procurement
Independent facilities management (FM) procurement support for Cardiff businesses with multi-site estates. Tender, review and reduce your spend, without changing what works.
- Healthcare estates
- Industrial portfolios
- Multi-site commercial
- Logistics
- Property developers
- In-house FM teams
Better facilities management contracts for Cardiff businesses
Cardiff sits at the centre of one of the UK’s active commercial property markets, with notable concentrations around Cardiff Bay and Central Square. Office estates, mixed-use buildings, retail and industrial holdings across the area share the same problem. Facilities management (FM) spend grows quietly, contracts auto-renew, and very few finance directors know whether they are getting fair value for what they pay.
Aligned helps Cardiff businesses fix that. We are available across Cardiff and the wider South Wales area, including Newport, Penarth, Barry, Caerphilly, Pontypridd and Bridgend. We are procurement specialists, not an FM provider, which means our advice is genuinely independent. We do not earn margin on supplier contracts.
That matters more than it sounds. A typical Cardiff portfolio carries cleaning, security, catering, mechanical and electrical maintenance, HVAC, building fabric, grounds, pest, waste, and helpdesk or computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) systems. Each of those is a market in its own right. Most businesses do not have time to test all of them, which is why their FM costs drift and supplier performance slips.
We typically save clients between 10 and 25 percent on FM expenditure through a combination of short term commercial wins and longer term structural changes. The work is not just about cutting cost. It is about making sure the contracts you sign actually deliver the service your estate needs.
Bundled, total facilities management or single service: which model actually saves you money?
There is no one size fits all in facilities management. The right contract structure depends on the size of your estate, how many sites you run, and how much in-house oversight you have.
Most businesses inherit their FM model rather than choose it. A property gets bought, a contract gets TUPE’d across, and three years later nobody can remember why cleaning, security and grounds all sit with three different providers on three different review dates. Here is a plain English look at the three main delivery models, what they cost, and where each one tends to go wrong.
Single service
One supplier per service line. Cleaning with one firm, security with another, M&E with a third. Most flexible, easiest to switch, but the management overhead grows fast as your estate grows.
Bundled
Two or three services packaged with one supplier. Common pairings are cleaning and security, or M&E and building fabric. Saves admin time and often unlocks volume discount, if scoped properly.
Total facilities management (TFM)
One supplier delivers everything across the estate. Single point of contact, single invoice, single service level framework. Powerful for large multi-site portfolios. Risky if the supplier underperforms, because you have nowhere to fall back to.
Where the money usually leaks
The biggest single cost we see in unreviewed FM contracts is duplicate scope. The cleaning contract covers waste removal, the M&E contract covers waste from plant rooms, and the grounds contract covers external waste. Three suppliers, three trips, three margins. Nobody planned it that way. It builds up over the years as services get added one at a time.
The second leak is uncapped reactive work. A maintenance contract often has a fixed planned preventive maintenance (PPM) scope, with reactive work charged at hourly rates. Without volume controls and pre-agreed rates for common items, that line on your P&L can double in a bad year and nobody can explain why.
The third is contract drift. The original scope might have specified four cleans a week, but the site team have asked for an extra evening clean for two years and nobody updated the contract. You are paying ad-hoc rates for something that should be priced into the schedule.
Most clients do not need a bigger procurement function. They need someone outside the day-to-day to look at the whole picture once every two or three years and ask the questions the supplier hopes nobody asks.
How we decide which model fits your estate
We start by looking at the data you already have. Spend by site, spend by service, contract end dates, and any service-level reporting your suppliers send. From there we benchmark each line against current UK market rates and look at where bundling would save money versus where it would just create a single point of failure. The answer is rarely the same across an entire portfolio.
Recognise any of these in your facilities management?
Most facilities management problems show up as symptoms long before anyone calls them problems. If two or three of these feel familiar, your contract is probably overdue a review.
- Your FM contract has auto-renewed two years running with no benchmarking
- Reactive maintenance costs have crept up year on year with no clear explanation
- Your supplier’s KPI reports always come back green but the site team are constantly flagging issues
- Service quality is fine in some buildings and inconsistent in others under the same contract
- Nobody on your team can confidently say what your FM contract excludes
- The supplier asks for variations and extras that should have been in scope
- Your CAFM data is outdated, incomplete or controlled entirely by the supplier
- You have inherited an FM setup through acquisition that is not comparable site to site
- The current supplier has been with you for five years or more
- Your invoices include line items that nobody internally fully understands
- You are paying for services your buildings no longer use at the volume specified
- The thought of going to tender feels too disruptive to actually start
What you can expect when working with us
No long discovery decks, no jargon. We move quickly, keep you in control, and only do the work that earns its place.
Procurement Health Check
A no-obligation review of your current facilities management setup. We look at spend, contracts, service levels and supplier performance, and tell you where the savings, performance gaps or contract risks sit.
Analyse and benchmark
We compile and analyse your FM data into useful reporting, and benchmark your current spend and supplier performance against current industry standards.
Tender, review or restructure
Whether the right next step is a contract audit, a compliant tender process, sourcing new suppliers, or bundling and repackaging services, we run it end to end.
Mobilise and ongoing support
We support contract mobilisation and transition planning, then offer ongoing commercial support and supplier performance monitoring once the contract is live.
Independent FM Procurement Expertise
Aligned was set up by Tony Houlihan to do one thing properly: independent facilities management procurement. Not consultancy as a sideline to selling services, not procurement as a feature of a larger advisory firm. Pure independent FM procurement, paid for by clients, with no margin from suppliers.
The specialism shows up in the work. FM contracts that get audited line by line, not glossed over. Tender shortlists built on real market knowledge of who delivers and who only sells. Mobilisation plans that anticipate the friction points before they become problems.
Where deeper subject-matter specialism is needed, Aligned works with a network of trusted associates in mechanical and electrical, soft services, project delivery and operational consultancy. The core engagement stays with Tony.
A Word From Our Founder
We have worked on FM procurement across healthcare estates, industrial portfolios, and multi-site commercial operations. We understand the pressure of keeping services running while trying to reduce cost and risk. Nothing is guaranteed in property, but better contracts and clearer oversight make a big difference.
Honest feedback from real clients
“Tony gave me the confidence to move forward.”
After a quick consultation with Tony, a review of all the supporting documents and a joint call with a member of my professional team, Tony gave me the confidence to move forward.
Four ways we help Cardiff businesses
Pick the engagement that fits where you are. We move at your pace and never sign you up for more scope than the problem needs.
Procurement Health Check
A no-obligation review of your current FM setup. We look at spend, contracts, SLAs and supplier performance, then come back with a clear view of where the savings and risks sit.
Book a Health CheckFM Contract Review
An independent review of an existing FM contract. We benchmark cost and service levels, assess performance, and recommend whether to optimise, renegotiate or re-tender.
Learn MoreFM Tender & Sourcing
End-to-end tender management. We shape the spec, run a compliant process, evaluate suppliers, and support contract award and mobilisation. Hard or soft services, single or bundled.
Learn MoreCommercial Support
Ongoing supplier performance monitoring, KPI reviews, and commercial advice once a contract is live. We stay close enough to keep things moving without adding overhead.
Learn MoreThe services we cover
From single service line to fully integrated total facilities management. We have worked across the full range and can advise on what fits your estate.
Soft Services
Cleaning, security, catering, reception, mailroom and front of house. Often the largest single line of FM spend and the most common area where scope and value drift.
Hard Services
M&E, mechanical and electrical maintenance, HVAC, building fabric, fire and life safety. Where compliance risk and reactive cost can build up quietly.
Grounds & External
Grounds maintenance, landscaping, pest control, waste management, and external building services. Easy to overlook, frequently overlapping with other contracts.
Helpdesk & CAFM
Helpdesk operation and CAFM software support. The reporting backbone of any decent FM contract, and the first place we look when assessing supplier performance.
Total Facilities Management
Fully integrated TFM under a single supplier. Powerful when scoped well. We help you decide whether TFM is right for your estate, and what the SLA framework should look like.
In-house Team Support
Where you run FM in-house, we support team development, sourcing strategy and supplier governance, without taking the work over.
Not sure if your FM is delivering value?
Book a Procurement Health Check and we will review your current setup and spot savings, performance gaps or contract risks. No obligation, no jargon.
Book Your Health CheckCommon questions from Cardiff clients
Which areas around Cardiff do you cover?
Aligned is available across Cardiff and the wider South Wales area, including Newport, Penarth, Barry, Caerphilly, Pontypridd and Bridgend. We also support multi-site clients with sites elsewhere in the UK.
We are not in your usual coverage area. Can you still help us?
Yes. Our consultancy support is national. We work with multi-site clients across the UK, and most advisory work happens remotely with site visits where they earn their place.
Will you take over our FM contract management?
We can support contract management on an ongoing basis if that is useful, but our preference is to make sure you have the right framework in place so you can run it yourself. Where you do want hands-on support, we are happy to stay involved through mobilisation and into business as usual.
What does an FM Procurement engagement typically cost?
Pricing depends on scope. The Procurement Health Check is no-obligation. Beyond that we work on fixed-fee project engagements, day-rate consultancy, or longer-term retainers where we provide ongoing commercial support. We agree fees up front, in writing, before any work starts.
Can you help us in-house, or only on contracts?
Both. Where you have an in-house FM team, we can support team development, sourcing strategy, supplier governance and benchmarking, without taking the contract management work over. Where you prefer to outsource, we run the procurement and tender work end to end.
Will going to tender disrupt our service delivery?
A well-run tender process should not disrupt day-to-day service. The current contract continues until the new one starts. Where there is risk is in poorly-planned mobilisation. We design transition plans to minimise that, with phased go-live and elevated oversight in the first 60 days.
How do you stay independent?
We do not take commission, kickbacks, referral fees or any other form of payment from FM suppliers. Our income comes from client fees, full stop. This is the core of how we operate and the only reason we can give the advice we give.
Available across Cardiff and South Wales
Aligned Property Services
Independent FM procurement consultancy serving Cardiff and the wider South Wales area, with multi-site clients across the UK.
Phone Email CoverageNewport, Penarth, Barry, Caerphilly, Pontypridd, Bridgend and beyond.
Get a clearer view of your FM spend
One conversation can tell you whether your current contracts are competitive, whether your suppliers are performing, and whether a tender is worth running.
Book Your Procurement Health Check