Helping you to prepare for the Procurement Act
New tendering rules and process will be introduced in the UK on 24 Feb 2025 | Visit our Procurement Act Hub to learn about these changes, and what you can do to prepare.
Learn about public sector contracts and discover how to unlock your tendering potential.
With over 45,000 tenders published each year across the UK, from Lands End to John O Groats, and Lowestoft to Belleek, the public sector has work available for any business.
Public sector organisations (including central government, councils, NHS, & emergency services) across the UK are required to freely advertise all procurement needs over the value of £12,000. This means rather than waiting for work to come to you, your business can search for opportunities and bid for contracts..
Tenders Direct collates and publishes every Public Contract and Below-threshold tender notice from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Our service eliminates the need to try and find tenders across multiple portals, by providing you with a single and accurate source of tender opportunities.
Use our free tender finder to see what types of opportunities are available for your business. Try searching for products, requirements, services or other relevant industry keywords.
The following articles provide you with information about how the UK public sector procures goods, works and services. You will also find tender searching guidance to help you better navigate the public sector landscape.
We can help you realise your tendering potential, by helping you access profitable tenders in the UK and teaching you how to win them.
Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service.
We have been helping businesses to find tenders since 1993. Our core service offers tender alerts for public sector opportunities in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and European Union.
We also offer a range of solutions to enhance your tendering potential:
To answer this question, you will have to do some research.
We can help you explore the market with a complimentary report, detailing all of the contracts published in the last 12 months which match your requirements.
If your bids accurately answer all of the questions within the tender, and clearly meet all of the requirements define, your chances of success are good.
The quality of your bids are assesses against that of the other bidders in a fair and transparent manner. This means your tender is judged purely on predefined criteria, and the most suitable contractors secure the work.
When you consider that 12% of tenders only have 1 or 2 bidders, you realise that your chances of success are quite high if your business can competently deliver all of the requirements within the tender.
Yes, SMEs have a fair chance of winning work with the public sector.
Quite simply, if your business, regardless of size, can fulfil all the requirements of a contract – you have a fair chance of winning the work. Your bids are assessed against those from other businesses, meaning you need to have the right balance of quality and cost to win.
High-value tenders are more suitable for larger or experienced businesses, but as Low-value tenders make up 66% of the market, the majority of contracts out there are suitable for SMEs.
The public sector has also been given the power to create tenders that are either exclusive to SMEs, or are only available to businesses operating locally (within a specific geographic region).
The UK government also has a goal of awarding £1 out of every £3 spent on central government tenders to SMEs.
All of this means that SMEs should not be intimidated by the public sector marketplace, and if relevant contracts are being published – your business could be winning some of this work.
