How Beacon Living Group housed 26 contractors across 8 houses, on one invoice, in three days

The brief: 26 contractors, short notice, nowhere to stay

When a developer took on a major project near Macclesfield, the build was not the problem. Housing the 26 contractors it needed, at short notice, was.

Finding 26 beds is hard enough. Getting 26 into whole houses, with parking for works vans and kitchens for a crew, is harder. Hotels cost a fortune over two months and cannot park a fleet of vans, and an ordinary rental wants a year's tenancy for a two-month job.

Then comes the hidden trap. The admin. Housing that many people usually means eight separate properties, which means eight operators to chase, eight sets of terms and eight invoices to reconcile every month. For a developer whose job is the build, not the booking, that is a back-office drag nobody on a live project has time for.

How Beacon Living Group handled it

Beacon Living Group took the whole problem off its hands. In three days it sourced eight houses across south Manchester, ranging from two to six bedrooms. Some were supplied by Beacon and some it brought in from other operators, and it bundled the lot into a single arrangement.

The developer got 26 workers housed for two months, one point of contact and one invoice. Not eight.

"The developer did not want to manage eight operators and eight bills. They wanted one call," said Omid, founder of Beacon Living Group. "We sourced the houses, handled the relationships and became the single point of contact. Anyone can find a room. Taking the whole headache away is the hard part, and that is what the business is built to do."

What a single point of contact actually saves

The value of a booking like this is not really the beds. It is the removal of eight separate relationships down to one.

• One consolidated invoice, with your purchase order or cost code on it, instead of eight to reconcile.
• One number to call when a date moves or something needs sorting at the house.
• One set of terms agreed once, rather than eight to read and sign.
• Rooms and vans matched to the crew at booking, so nobody arrives to a house that cannot take their vehicle.

Beacon Living Group runs the booking itself rather than through a call centre, so the person who takes the order is the person who answers when a project date changes. On a live job, that is the part that earns the repeat booking. For the mechanics of a multi-property booking, rates and invoicing, see our guide to block-booking contractor accommodation in Manchester.

The kind of house behind it

The houses Beacon runs are built for the way contractors actually live. A property like Briar House in Wythenshawe, one that Beacon operates, is a newly refurbished four-bedroom home about ten minutes from Manchester Airport and a straight run south to Macclesfield.

It sleeps eight, parks four vans on its own driveway at no extra cost and comes with a full kitchen, a washing machine and dryer for wet workwear, fast internet and all bills included. Self-check-in is on a keypad, so a crew finishing at ten at night simply lets itself in. For a team of eight, one house at a single nightly rate lands well below eight separate hotel rooms, and the team stays together rather than scattered across the city.

Briar House has a published rate of £180 a night for the whole house, with 10% off stays of seven nights or more and 25% off stays of 28 nights or more. The same nights booked direct take a further 7% off. You can see the house, its rates and live availability rather than ask for a quote.

Why more projects book this way

The gap between what a major project needs and what the usual options offer is only widening as the region keeps building. Greater Manchester and Cheshire have sustained construction, rail, hospital and airport work, and every one of those jobs runs on skilled people who travel in and stay for weeks at a time.

Whole homes let by the week or the month, with parking, kitchens and bills handled, have quietly become the practical answer for that workforce. The developer has committed to book Beacon again for its next project, from the end of October. In this trade, a client who comes back is worth more than any single job.

For where that work sits across the city, see our guide to Manchester construction projects and accommodation.