A year in Onetrace: what we built in 2025

Onetrace, one year on: What we’ve been building this year

The past year has been a demanding one for subcontractors.

Materials prices have been volatile, labour has been harder to secure, and with fewer projects available, competition has gotten stiffer.

Under these economic conditions, the way teams run their jobs matters more than ever. Supervisors need clear data to protect their margins and reliable workflows to make up for smaller headcounts.

These challenges have been top of mind for Onetrace. Our goal, as ever, is to make it easier for subcontractors to stay organised, work efficiently, and deliver high-quality results across every project.

Over the past five years, Onetrace has grown alongside the subcontractors who use it. We were recently named the 109th of the UK’s Top 200 fastest-growing businesses in 2025, and London's fastest growing company in the Construction, Building, and Property Services category. The feedback you’ve shared has driven this growth, and shaped every improvement we’ve made this year.

Putting your data in your hands

Subcontractors can’t afford to make decisions in the dark, but costs moved so quickly this year that it was hard to keep up.

Construction costs continued to rise across the UK this year, driven by increases in both materials and labour. And with industry forecasts pointing to further cost inflation ahead, staying on top of these shifts has become even more challenging.

We know our users need clear, real-time visibility into what a project will cost you in both materials and labour today—not what it would have cost last year. This year, we focused on giving teams exactly that: practical, exportable, analysis-ready, real-time data that helps you track spend, project status, tasks and activities. That way you can make smarter decisions from the bid to the job site.

After all, the more control you have over your data, the more control you have over your business.

Export numbers that matter

You don’t have to copy and paste or stitch reports together to track spend and make forecasts for your projects anymore.

You can now export clients, projects, and jobs directly to CSV to use the data in your CRM, spreadsheets, and other business intelligence tools.

See every action and change order

With the new Job Activity Log and Approval History, you get a full, timestamped view of how work is progressing on every job. This level of transparency helps you solve issues when they inevitably crop up and have clear, accurate answers for clients when questions arise.

Understand where your time and money are going

We added location-level visibility and status tracking inside job sheets so you can see where time is being spent, where delays are forming, and what needs your attention most.

Faster, smarter workflows

According to RICS’ UK Construction Monitor, labour shortages continue to affect the industry and are contributing to project delays and capacity constraints.

When labour is hard to secure and even harder to keep, subcontractors need to achieve more with the resources they have.

Every duplicated step and unclear job instruction compounds the pressure on already-strapped teams.

That’s why so much of what we built this year focused on removing friction from everyday tasks.

A job process that just makes sense

The new Jobs experience makes navigation clearer.

Features like Recall and Reassign help managers pivot quickly when something changes on the ground.

Forms that adapt to the work

New conditional fields within the app make on-site decisions easier for operatives by only showing options that are relevant to the task in front of them.

For example, different follow-up fields pop up automatically depending on whether an operative selects Yes or No to a certain question.

Approvals that keep quality moving

Quality checks can easily become a bottleneck when teams are stretched thin and work is happening across multiple sites. Our new Approvals workflow offers subcontractors a clear, structured QA process that fits naturally into daily workflows.

Managers can review, accept, or reject work directly from the platform. Onetrace provides timestamps for auditing purposes and lets managers add any comments or supporting evidence necessary for the approval.

Scaling Onetrace to better serve growing teams

As your subcontracting business grows, so does the administrative load.

More operatives and projects mean more documentation and materials to manage. Doing the job is challenging enough—and all the new behind-the-scenes work takes extra time to organise and maintain.

This year, we focused on building tools that help medium and large subcontractors scale without miring them in layers of complexity and overhead. Our goal is to make it just as easy to run a 100-person crew as it is to run a 10-person crew.

Based on feedback from customers like James Haigh, we’re on the right track.

“Onetrace has really grown with us, our guys love it. The quality of the reports for our clients is fantastic.”

Haigh, Group Strategic Director for Trail Group.

Setup that takes minutes, not days

With our new bulk imports for materials and project structures, you can now build out entire catalogues and complex site hierarchies in one go.

Make blocks, levels, zones, and product groups, and upload them in minutes instead of manually entering them over the course of days.

Particularly for businesses growing into multi-site or multi-service operations, these feature updates will save an enormous amount of time.

Control over who sees what

As you scale, controlling project access becomes more important for both data security and keeping teams focused on the work at hand.

From a single member profile within Onetrace, you can now manage an operative’s access across all projects. Quickly add them to the right sites, remove them when a project wraps, or shift them between teams instantly as priorities change.

The right level of responsibility

The new Manager role gives your supervisors and team leads the authority they need without giving them full administrative power. They can oversee work, approve job sheets, and manage day-to-day delivery while your core admins keep control over systemwide settings.

Built-in compliance

As teams scale, manual compliance tracking becomes aggravating and all but unmanageable.

With auto-assigned documents and mandatory sign-before-work rules, you no longer have to chase signatures or monitor who’s read what. These updates ensure your policies are consistently applied, no matter how large your workforce becomes.

“As Head of Fire Doors at City Fire Proofing, I can confidently say that Onetrace has been a game-changer for me and our operations”

said Peter Angliss. “The intuitive interface and comprehensive tracking capabilities ensure we maintain the highest standards of compliance and efficiency. Onetrace isn’t just a tool; it’s an essential partner.”

Better presentation and clearer pricing

With growth forecasts for the construction industry looking cautious, competition across the sector remains tough.

In a tight market, presentation is a competitive advantage. Clear reports, consistent branding, and transparent pricing help you win clients and maintain their trust.

That’s why we worked this year to elevate how subcontractors communicate the quality of their work.

Reports that look as professional as the work behind them

Custom report covers now give every project a clean, consistent identity. Whether you’re submitting QA evidence or final handover packs, your reporting now reflects the standard your teams deliver on site.

“Absolute game-changer for photographic reporting, extemely simple to use. My guys on site love it as much as i do. So do my auditors.”

Rachel Donnellan of Fleet Insulation

Polished reporting lets you demonstrate reliability before a single operative arrives on site.

Pricing you can stand behind

The new Rates Preview feature gives commercial teams full visibility into how material rates are calculated and which tiers apply. That means no more accidental underpricing, second-guessing yourself, or getting floored by surprises when reviewing supplier terms.

As clients scrutinise every cost and margins face greater pressure, pricing confidently and transparently will set your bids apart—and preserve your profits.

Keeping you informed and in control

As Onetrace has grown, we’ve introduced more capabilities, more depth, and more flexibility. But great tools only work when teams actually know they’re there, so we created a simpler, more transparent way to stay up to date.

The new in-app Changelog brings product updates directly into the platform. When something changes or a new feature drops, teams will now see it right where they work instead of in some email they’re likely to miss or a release note hidden on the website.

Looking ahead to 2026

Onetrace started as a simple way to bring clarity to fire protection work. Today, it’s a platform used across multiple trades and project types.

This year, we worked to build the tools subcontractors need to stay efficient, competitive, and in control, no matter what the market is doing.

Every feature in this retrospective was shaped by the realities you’re facing on the ground, including tighter margins, leaner teams, and more scrutiny.

We’re continuing to invest in the areas that matter most to you. That means more visibility into operations, smarter automations, and faster workflows in the year to come.

For now, thank you. Thank you for your feedback, your ideas, and the trust you place in us. It’s been a year of meaningful progress, and we’re just getting started.