Sourcing one good contractor is a vetting exercise. Sourcing good contractors for fifteen sites across three regions is a coverage exercise — and the organisations that manage portfolios well treat it as one, mapping supply against geography before worrying about any individual appointment.
Start with the coverage grid
Lay out sites against required trades: every cell needs a named, vetted contractor, and ideally a fallback. The empty cells are your sourcing plan. Most portfolios discover two uncomfortable truths at this stage — critical trades covered by a single business, and entire regions dependent on 'someone head office once used'.
Regional bench versus national contractor
The classic multi-site dilemma. National contractors offer one contract and one invoice, at the cost of subcontracted delivery you cannot see into and standard rates that ignore local markets. A regional bench — strong local businesses per area — usually delivers better response and pricing, at the cost of more relationships to manage. Many portfolios land on a hybrid: national or framework arrangements for standardised compliance cycles, regional benches for reactive and fabric work. Whichever way you lean, the subcontractor management question — who is actually turning up? — deserves an explicit answer.
Standardise the vetting, localise the supply
Multi-site sourcing multiplies vetting workload, and the temptation is to relax standards for far-away sites. Resist it by standardising: one set of criteria, one document pack, one decision record — applied to every candidate in every region. Consistency is what makes a distributed supply chain auditable.
Use structured sourcing rather than fifteen local searches
The open-market alternative — a separate internet search per town per trade — is slow and unrepeatable. A network approach inverts it: Regency Contractors Network lets portfolio operators search vetted contractors by trade and service area across the UK, compare structured profiles, and open direct conversations region by region from one place. Coverage gaps become filters, not projects — including across our growing location coverage.
Then manage what you built
Found and vetted is not finished: multi-site benches need document expiry tracking, performance review and periodic market testing, or they decay into the very dependence you mapped your way out of. Our guide to managing contractors across multiple properties picks up from here.
Frequently asked questions
- How many contractors does a multi-site portfolio need?
- Enough for two options per critical trade per region — the exact number follows the coverage grid, not a formula. Density of sites, trade mix and building types drive it.
- Is it better to grow with one contractor as the portfolio grows?
- Growing a proven relationship is efficient, but let it be a decision rather than a drift — test coverage honestly at each expansion, and keep alternatives warm for the day capacity or quality slips.
