Bid Support Tuesdays provide the opportunity for members to ask questions and queries to ITS UK’s two inhouse bidding exports – Phil Seymour and Pippa Birch.

Held on the third Tuesday of each month, Phil and Pippa will hold an hour and a half online session to run you through some key tips and tricks on making your bid or proposal as effective as possible. Both bring with them many years of experience in supporting organisations win new business.

At this session, we’ll be looking at National Highways Designated Funds Innovation and Research Bids. Paul Unwin, Tier 1 Programme Sponsor,  Major Projects Directorate at  National Highways will present on the opportunities available at their Development Centre in Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire. 

Register here

Our Guest Speaker: Paul Unwin

Paul is a Programme Sponsor with National Highways, a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transport, and a Registered Project Professional Member of the Association of Project Management.

He has over 35 years of experience in National Highways and the Department for Transport, leading large multi-disciplinary teams delivering complex high technology motorway infrastructure projects, including the Smart Motorways Programme and currently the Programme Sponsor for £500m A417 Air Balloon Missing Link project in Gloucestershire due to open for traffic in Spring 2027.

Passionate about encouraging and supporting new leadership talent, Paul invests time in identifying and nurturing potential, encouraging and mentoring colleagues at all levels to be leaders, to lead by example with positive behaviours, and is a qualified collaborative behavioural maturity assessor.
He is a visiting lecturer at Aston University, University of Birmingham, Coventry University, University of Warwick and Imperial College, London, and is a frequent interviewee for online podcasts speaking about Positive Leadership Behaviours, Situational Leadership, Leading through Stressful Times, Preparing for the Workplace and Net Zero Carbon.

Paul is an active contributor of articles on LinkedIn, has authored a number of Technical Papers and is a Media Spokesperson for National Highways on TV and radio.

About Pippa and Phil

Phil Seymour
Phil Seymour is the principal at an independent RICS chartered surveyor business and is an expert on construction costs. He has extensive experience of transport infrastructure construction and maintenance and works with public & private organisations procuring civil engineering projects. He supports engineers and contractors with commercial advice, supply chain strategies, contractual analysis and pricing for their tenders. Phil is a member of the CICES, RICS, IAT, ITS and CIHT.
 

Pippa Birch
Pippa Birch has been a bid and tender professional for over two decades. Her bid consultancy, Pipster Solutions Ltd, is the only one in the UK specialising in highways and civil engineering. She is APMP Professional certified (bid professional), and an active member of the IAT and CIHT, with many highways-specific awards to her name, including those from the Worshipful Paviors, IAT’s Contribution to the Profession, and the Shell Bitumen Award for Excellence. Her award-winning business builds long term partnerships with clients, helping them navigate public tenders to ensure they win the contracts needed to grow their businesses. Her team reviews, manages, writes quality submissions, and coordinates bids and tenders, ensuring compliant, high scoring submissions.