How to write a construction RFQ in the UAE

A construction RFQ in the UAE is not a short email with a floor plan attached. Contractors price what they can measure and they qualify what they cannot. The more gaps in the pack, the more provisional sums, exclusions and “to be confirmed” items come back — or the enquiry sits until someone chases drawings.

This is the pack we ask for when a developer, consultant or owner sends work through BuildScope.

1. Say what the job is, in one paragraph

State the asset, the floor or villa, the current condition and the outcome you want. “Fit-out of Level 5, occupied commercial tower, Abu Dhabi — strip-out of previous tenant, new partitions, MEP tie-in to landlord services, Civil Defence close-out” is enough. “Office renovation, quote please” is not.

Name the client type if it affects access: landlord, government occupier, live residential community, or vacant shell.

2. Issue a drawing set that matches the site

Send the latest consultant or in-house set, not a marketing layout. At minimum:

• Floor plan with demolition and proposed
• Reflected ceiling plan if ceilings change
• Furniture or joinery layouts if they are in the contract
• MEP schematic or load schedule if you already have one
• Landlord fit-out guide or house rules

If the drawings do not match the site — a common problem in occupied towers — say so. We will treat a site visit as part of the scope freeze, not as a surprise after the offer.

3. A BOQ, or an honest note that there is none

A measured bill of quantities is the cleanest way to compare contractors. If you have one, send the native file (Excel) plus PDF. We check quantities line by line and flag gaps before we price.

If there is no BOQ, say so. We will measure from drawings and the site and issue a scoped offer instead of inventing a bill you never asked for. That is slower than pricing a complete BOQ, and it should be.

4. Write the exclusions, not just the inclusions

Most disputes in small and mid-size UAE packages sit in the exclusions. State who owns:

• Authority and Civil Defence submissions
• Landlord or consultant approval fees
• Firefighting and fire-alarm tie-ins
• BMS, access control and extra-low-voltage
• Furniture, appliances and IT
• Making good corridors, lifts and loading bays
• Out-of-hours working and goods-lift bookings
• Testing, commissioning and as-built drawings

If you want a single contractor to hold those items, say so. That is the work BeavCon is set up to do on commercial fit-out and villa renovation packages.

5. Access, hours and the live building

In Dubai and Abu Dhabi the programme is often decided by the building, not the contractor. Tell us:

• Occupied or vacant
• Working hours allowed (and noisy-works hours)
• Goods-lift booking rules
• Loading-bay hours
• Whether the fire system can be isolated, and for how long
• Permit-to-work or landlord induction requirements

We have delivered consecutive floors inside an operating tower at ADNEC. The RFQ for that kind of job has to mention the occupancy. If it does not, the first programme you receive is fiction.

6. Dates and a budget band — even if both are soft

A required start and a required completion let us say whether the package is realistic. A budget band (under AED 50k, 50–250k, 250k–1m, 1–2m, over 2m) lets us tell you immediately if the scope and the number cannot meet.

Neither figure is a commitment. Both stop wasted estimating time.

7. Who will answer questions

Name one technical contact and one commercial contact. Attach the files as PDF, DWG, XLSX, DOCX, JPG or ZIP. Executables are rejected.

What happens when the pack is complete

On a standard package — a frozen scope, a readable drawing set and access that can be confirmed — BeavCon targets a qualified technical-commercial proposal within 48 hours of a site assessment or technical call. Larger or consultant-led scopes are given a date at that first review. The 48-hour figure is a target, not a guarantee.

Upload the RFQ through BuildScope. A reference is issued immediately and an engineer reviews the files before anything is priced.