Joining as a Joinery Partner
Joinery Partners are a separate track in the Beams network — fabricators of bespoke kitchens, wardrobes, and joinery items. Different vetting, different contract, different operating model. Here's how to join.
Joinery Partners are a separate track in the Beams network — fabricators of bespoke kitchens, wardrobes, vanities, and other joinery items. You're not a builder running site works; you're a workshop fabricating bespoke items to specification. This article covers what's different about the Joinery Partner track and how to join.
Who Joinery Partners are
Specialist fabricators with the workshop, tooling, and design capability to take a customer or design intent brief from survey through to shop drawings, fabrication, delivery, and install. Some Joinery Partners install with their own teams; others hand off to the lead builder for installation. Both models work on Beams.
What's different from being a builder
- You're not the principal contractor on site. That's the lead builder under the Home Improvement Contract (HIC).
- You sign a different contract — the Joinery Partner Agreement. It governs your relationship with Beams, with similar core principles to the Builder Agreement but adjusted for the workshop model.
- Your customer contract is the Joinery Improvement Contract (JIC) (Joinery Improvement Contract), not the HIC.
- Your milestones are 50/40/10 — Design Freeze, delivery to site, snagging cleared.
- Your warranty is layered — typically two years on workmanship, plus pass-through on materials and finishes.
- Your vetting includes workshop and design capability, not just trade and site competence.
Vetting
We assess:
- Workshop capability — premises, tooling, capacity.
- Design and drawing capability — surveying, shop drawings, materials specification.
- Past projects — examples of completed bespoke work, with references.
- Insurance — public liability, employer's liability, and product liability appropriate to fabrication.
- Compliance — trade memberships, certifications relevant to joinery (e.g. for kitchen fitting).
- Warranty period and conditions — what you offer on workmanship, hardware, and finishes.
- Delivery capability — vans, lifting equipment, geographic reach.
- Conduct and finish standard — both technical and customer-facing.
The vetting is more involved than the standard builder vetting because joinery quality is harder to recover from — once a bespoke item is fabricated wrong, it can't be unmade.
How to apply
Apply through the standard builder application route, indicating Joinery Partner. Our build team will be in touch to walk through the workshop and design assessment. Expect the process to take 2–4 weeks.
What "live" looks like for a Joinery Partner
Live Joinery Partners receive project briefs from customers whose Beams build includes bespoke joinery, sometimes with input from Beams design intent on the customer's behalf. You take design intent through production design, run survey and shop drawings, fabricate, and deliver. The article How a joinery project runs alongside a build covers the operational shape.
What this means for you
Joining as a Joinery Partner is a fit for workshops who want a steady flow of bespoke projects with the customer protection and payment infrastructure that Beams provides. If you're primarily an installer rather than a fabricator, the standard builder track may be a better fit.
Related articles
- How a joinery project runs alongside a build
- Joinery Partner milestones (50/40/10)