Nottingham FM Contract Review
Independent fm contract issues support for Nottingham 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 Nottingham businesses
Nottingham sits within the East Midlands, with active commercial property markets around the Lace Market and the Creative Quarter. Across most Nottingham businesses, facilities management (FM) spend grows quietly. Contracts auto-renew, scope drifts in the supplier’s favour, and very few finance directors can confidently say whether the price they pay is competitive.
Aligned helps Nottingham businesses fix that. We are available across Nottingham and the wider the East Midlands area, including Beeston, West Bridgford, Long Eaton, Arnold, Mansfield and Hucknall. 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 Nottingham 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.
Hard services vs soft services: why the distinction matters for procurement
Most FM tenders go wrong because the buyer does not draw a clear enough line between hard and soft services. The two are bought differently, priced differently, and managed differently.
Hard services are the things that keep the building physically functioning. Mechanical and electrical maintenance, HVAC, building fabric, fire and life safety, lift maintenance, plumbing, drainage. These are compliance-led. There is a planned preventive maintenance (PPM) schedule mandated by regulation or insurance. The market is dominated by specialist engineering firms with technical accreditation. Pricing is built around qualified labour, regulatory paperwork, and reactive call-out cover.
Soft services are everything that keeps the building usable for people. Cleaning, security, catering, reception, mailroom, waste, pest control, landscaping. These are service-quality led. There is a specification (cleaning frequency, guarding hours, response times) but the market is competitive, less regulated, and labour-cost driven.
Why this matters when you tender
Different supplier markets. Hard services have fewer credible national suppliers because of the technical accreditation barrier. Soft services have many credible suppliers because the barrier is lower. A bundled tender that lumps both together can rule out the best soft-services suppliers (who do not have hard-services capability) and force you to accept second-best hard-services delivery from a supplier whose expertise is really cleaning.
Different cost structures. Hard services cost is largely labour plus parts plus compliance overhead. The PPM schedule is fixed; reactive work is variable. Soft services cost is almost entirely labour. Margin sits in different places. A 10 percent saving is achieved through different mechanisms in each market.
Different KPI frameworks. Hard services KPIs are about uptime, compliance and response time. Soft services KPIs are about quality of output and user experience. Trying to manage both under one SLA framework usually means one or the other gets short-changed.
When bundling makes sense and when it does not
Bundling is right when administrative simplicity matters more than the last 5 percent of cost. A small estate, an in-house team that has no time to manage multiple suppliers, a head office that needs everything to just work. Splitting is right when the estate is large enough that 5 percent on each line is real money, when the in-house team has procurement capacity, and when service quality variation between best-in-class and average is significant.
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.
Built On Independence
Aligned is built on a simple commitment. We do not take supplier margin, referral fees, kickbacks, or any other payment from the FM providers we shortlist or recommend. Every penny of Aligned’s income comes from client fees. That is the only way to deliver advice that holds up to scrutiny.
Tony Houlihan founded Aligned to operate that way deliberately. Many FM consultancies are funded partly or wholly by supplier introductions. We have chosen the harder commercial model because clients deserve advice that is not quietly biased.
The discipline of independence shapes everything else. Open-book benchmarking. Blind supplier evaluation. Clear written recommendations with the reasoning shown. If you are paying for procurement advice, you should know whose interests it actually serves.
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 Nottingham 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.
FM 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 MoreProcurement 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 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 Nottingham clients
Which areas around Nottingham do you cover?
Aligned is available across Nottingham and the wider the East Midlands area, including Beeston, West Bridgford, Long Eaton, Arnold, Mansfield and Hucknall. 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 Nottingham and the East Midlands
Aligned Property Services
Independent FM procurement consultancy serving Nottingham and the wider the East Midlands area, with multi-site clients across the UK.
Phone Email CoverageBeeston, West Bridgford, Long Eaton, Arnold, Mansfield, Hucknall 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