Groundworks Management Software: How UK Civils Contractors Can Run Cash, RAMS and Subbies in One System

Groundworks in 2025: High Risk, Thin Margins

Running a groundworks or civils business in the UK means dealing with:

• Tight margins on labour and plant.
• Re-measures, variations and early warnings.
• High-risk work that demands robust RAMS.
• Fleets of vans, excavators and hired-in plant.
• CIS subcontractors and gangs moving between sites.

Many firms still manage all of this with a mixture of spreadsheets, WhatsApp and separate tools. It works, until it doesn't.

Groundworks management software is about pulling those strands together into one system that understands how civils work actually runs.

What Groundworks Management Software Should Cover

Groundworks is not just another flavour of \"project management\". A system that fits needs to handle four core areas well:

1. Commercial control

- Tenders and estimates.
- Project setup with contract items and BOQs.
- Applications for payment and final accounts.
- Variations, re-measures and dayworks.

See how we approach this on our commercial management for QS teams page.

2. Safety and RAMS

- RAMS for high-risk civils activities (excavations, shoring, confined spaces, traffic management).
- Toolbox talks and sign-offs.
- Incidents and near-miss reporting.

Groundworks work is intrinsically high-risk. Your software must make it easy to keep RAMS live, not just filed.

3. Fleet and plant

- Daily checks and defect reporting for vehicles and plant.
- Planned and reactive maintenance.
- Utilisation and allocation across projects.

Learn more about dedicated fleet and plant management.

4. Subcontractors and CIS

- Onboarding gangs and subcontractors.
- Weekly whereabouts and allocation.
- CIS deductions and statements.

Our CIS subcontractor management module is designed with this in mind.

Why Generic Construction Tools Often Fall Short for Groundworks

Many software platforms group all contractors together. In practice, groundworks and civils have some distinct needs:

• Heavy emphasis on applications for payment rather than time-and-materials invoicing.
• Complex re-measures and variations based on real-site conditions.
• Plant and excavation risks that demand more robust RAMS workflows.
• Large volumes of CIS subcontractors and gang work.

Generic tools may offer Gantt charts and RFIs but lack depth in these areas. That usually means you end up bolting spreadsheets and extra tools onto the side.

How Site Samurai Maps to a Typical Groundworks Project

Site Samurai is built around the workflows that matter most to civils and groundworks contractors:

From tender to live project

- Log opportunities and tenders.
- Build estimates and BOQs.
- Convert accepted tenders into live projects with contract items pre-loaded.

Running work on site

- Use site diaries and photos to capture progress.
- Record re-measures, variations and early warnings as they happen.
- Manage RAMS, toolbox talks and incidents in one system.

See our RAMS and safety for high-risk civils work for more.

Applications for payment and final account

- Build line-by-line applications for payment.
- Attach evidence from site diaries and variations.
- Track what is claimed vs certified and why.

Fleet, plant and subcontractors

- Run daily checks and defect logging for vehicles and plant.
- Allocate plant and gangs across sites.
- Capture whereabouts and prepare CIS-aware payments.

Build vs Buy vs \"Make Do with Spreadsheets\"

When you think about software, you have three options:

1. Make do with spreadsheets and messaging apps.
- Low direct cost, high hidden cost. - Hard to scale and easy to break.

1. Build a custom system.
- Tailored to you, but expensive to build and maintain. - You become a software company as well as a contractor.

1. Adopt a platform built for UK construction and civils.
- Faster time to value. - Ongoing improvements without your team writing code.

For most groundworks firms, option 3 is the realistic way to get control without taking on software development risk.

Implementation Plan: Bringing One Live Job into Site Samurai

A pragmatic way to get started is to pick one representative job and run it through Site Samurai end-to-end:

1. Select a live project with meaningful value (e.g. £3500k+ civils job).
2. Set up the project with contract items, BOQs and key dates.
3. Configure RAMS, plant and subcontractor records.
4. Run site diaries, applications and fleet checks entirely through the platform for one month.
5. Compare results versus your old way of working: admin time, clarity of cost/value, dispute levels.

From there you can decide how quickly to migrate other jobs and teams.

Conclusion: Make Software Work the Way Groundworks Works

Groundworks and civils work is fast-moving and risk-heavy. If your data is trapped in separate tools and spreadsheets, you always feel like you are reacting.

The right groundworks management software brings tenders, applications for payment, RAMS, fleet and CIS subbies into one view. You get earlier warnings, cleaner cash flow and better evidence when things go wrong.

If you want a platform built for UK construction and civils rather than generic projects:

• Explore commercial management for QS teams.
• See how we handle RAMS and safety for high-risk civils work, fleet and plant management and CIS subcontractor management.
• Review plans and pricing.
• Or start a free trial and run your next groundworks job inside Site Samurai.