Everything a small business needs to know about bidding for public sector contracts, in plain English.
Every year the UK public sector spends over £300 billion buying goods and services from outside suppliers. This includes everything from IT systems and cleaning contracts to building work, landscaping and catering. By law, most of this spending has to be openly advertised, meaning any business can compete for it.
Tendering is the formal process of responding to one of these opportunities. You read what the buyer wants, write a proposal — called a bid or tender response — explaining how you would deliver it, and submit it by a deadline. The buyer scores every response against a published set of criteria and awards the contract to the highest scorer.
The process sounds daunting, and the jargon does not help. But for many small businesses, government work is more reliable than private sector work. Contracts run longer, payment terms are typically 30 days and legally enforced, and a buyer cannot simply stop using you because someone cheaper turned up. Once you are delivering well, public sector contracts tend to renew and extend.
The single biggest barrier is not capability. It is that most small businesses never look, assuming the work is reserved for large national firms. It is not. Government has explicit targets for spending with small and medium-sized businesses, and a large share of published contracts are well within reach of a firm with a handful of staff.
Not all government contracts work the same way, and knowing which type you are looking at tells you how much work the bid will be.
Open procedure. Anyone can bid. The buyer advertises the contract, you download the documents, write a response and submit. This is the most common route for smaller contracts and the best place to start.
Restricted procedure. Two stages. First you submit a selection questionnaire, sometimes still called a PQQ, proving your company is capable and compliant. Those who pass are invited to submit a full bid, known as an Invitation to Tender or ITT. Used for larger or more complex contracts.
Framework agreement. A pre-approved list of suppliers, appointed for typically two to four years. Once the application window closes, no new suppliers can join until it is re-tendered. Work is then awarded to suppliers on the list, either directly or through mini-competitions between them.
Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). Similar to a framework but permanently open. You can apply at any time, there is no cap on the number of suppliers, and every job must be competed among relevant suppliers on the list. For most small businesses this is the most accessible route into public sector work.
Direct award. Below certain thresholds, buyers can approach suppliers directly without running a competition. This is why being known to local buyers matters, and why getting onto approved lists is worth the effort.
Public sector opportunities are spread across several systems, which is the main practical difficulty in finding them.
Contracts Finder. The UK government's official portal for contracts above £12,000 for central government and £30,000 for wider public sector bodies in England. Free to use and the single largest source of published opportunities.
Find a Tender Service. For higher value contracts above the procurement thresholds, currently around £139,000 for most central government services and considerably higher for works. This replaced the EU's OJEU and TED systems after Brexit.
Council e-tendering portals. Most councils advertise on Contracts Finder but run the actual process through their own portal — ProContract, Delta eSourcing, In-Tend, Jaggaer or similar. You usually need to register separately on each one, though registration is free and quick.
NHS routes. Individual trusts procure independently through their own portals, alongside NHS Supply Chain and health-specific frameworks. Because every trust buys separately, there are far more opportunities than people expect.
Devolved nations. Scotland uses Public Contracts Scotland, Wales uses Sell2Wales, and Northern Ireland uses eSourcing NI. If you work across borders you need to watch these separately.
The practical problem is not that opportunities are hidden. It is volume and language. Hundreds of notices are published every week, written in procurement terminology, and the large majority are irrelevant to any given business. Reading them all is not realistic, which is the specific problem TenderRoad was built to solve: every opportunity is translated into plain English and scored against your business profile before you ever see it.
Broadly yes, if you are a legitimate UK business. There is no minimum size and sole traders and micro-businesses win government contracts regularly.
What buyers typically check:
Financial standing. They want confidence that your business will not fail mid-contract. Most ask for two to three years of accounts, and a common rule of thumb is that your annual turnover should be at least twice the annual contract value. Newer businesses can sometimes substitute management accounts or a bank reference.
Health and safety. A documented health and safety policy, and for most work above roughly £25,000 an SSIP-recognised accreditation such as CHAS, Constructionline or SafeContractor.
Insurance. Public liability of at least £5m for most contracts, employers' liability if you have staff, and professional indemnity where there is any advisory or design element. You usually only need cover in place at contract award rather than at bid stage, so a quote from your broker is often enough.
References. Two or three examples of comparable work, usually within the last three to five years, with contact details for the client. They do not have to be public sector contracts.
Compliance declarations. Confirmation that your business has not been convicted of certain offences, is up to date with tax, and pays its own suppliers reasonably promptly.
If you are missing something, read the specification carefully before assuming you are out. Many requirements are marked desirable rather than mandatory, and a strong bid can compensate for a gap. Where something genuinely is mandatory, it is usually obtainable — most accreditations take weeks and a few hundred pounds, not years.
The secret to a good government bid is not elegant writing. It is directly answering what was asked.
Evaluators work from a published mark scheme. They are looking for specific things in your answer, and if you do not address them you score zero for that element regardless of how well written your response is. Bids are frequently lost by capable companies who wrote about what they wanted to say rather than what was asked.
Read the specification twice before writing anything. Underline every question, every requirement and every stated evaluation criterion. Note the weightings, because they tell you where to spend your effort.
Answer in the buyer's language. If they call it a service delivery plan, use that exact phrase. If they ask about mobilisation, use the word mobilisation. Evaluators are scanning for the terms in their mark scheme.
Use a clear structure for quality questions. Context, action, result works well: what the situation was, what you specifically did, and what the measurable outcome was. Numbers beat adjectives every time.
Be concrete. "We provide an excellent responsive service" says nothing. "Our engineers are based in the borough and we guarantee attendance within four hours for emergency call-outs, which we achieved on 98% of jobs last year" says something that can actually be scored.
Do not waffle. Evaluators read dozens of responses. Short, clear, well-organised answers score better than long ones, and most questions carry a word limit that is there for a reason.
Answer the social value question properly. It is worth at least 10% of the score on central government contracts and often more elsewhere. Small local businesses tend to have a genuine advantage here and routinely undersell it.
Price realistically. Buyers are price-sensitive but they also reject abnormally low bids on the grounds that the bidder has misunderstood the scope. Price the work properly and defend it on quality.
Have someone else read it before you submit. If a person outside your business can understand what you do and why you are a good choice, the evaluator will too.
Knowing the rhythm of a procurement helps you plan around it rather than scrambling at the end.
Open procedure contracts. Advertised typically 25 to 30 days before the deadline, giving you that long to respond. Evaluation then takes two to six weeks, followed by a mandatory 10-day standstill period before the contract can be awarded. Contract start is usually four to eight weeks after your submission.
Restricted procedure. Add another four to eight weeks at the front for the selection questionnaire stage before you are even invited to bid.
Framework applications. Usually open for four to six weeks, after which you are on the framework for two to four years.
DPS applications. Open continuously. Assessment typically takes a few weeks and you can apply on any day of the year.
There are two practical implications. First, do not wait until you see a contract you want before starting on accreditations, because you will not have time. Second, build a pipeline view: with evaluation and standstill periods, work you bid for in spring may not start until late summer, so you need overlapping bids rather than sequential ones.
If you are starting from nothing, this is the order that wastes the least time.
One. Get an SSIP health and safety accreditation such as CHAS, SafeContractor or Constructionline. This is the most common single reason small businesses are filtered out before evaluation, and it costs a few hundred pounds.
Two. Write up three case studies of completed work. Client, value, duration, what the challenge was, what you did, what the result was. You will reuse these in every bid you ever submit, so doing it once properly saves an enormous amount of time later.
Three. Check your insurance levels against what public contracts typically require, particularly £5m public liability. Get a quote for any uplift so you know the cost in advance.
Four. Register on the procurement portals your local buyers use — your county and district councils, nearby housing associations, your local NHS trust. Registration is free and quick, and it is required before you can see or respond to anything.
Five. Apply to two or three dynamic purchasing systems in your sector and area. They are open all year, admission is pass or fail rather than competitive, and it puts you in the pool for call-off work without writing a full tender.
Do those five things and you are ahead of the large majority of small businesses in your sector, most of whom never get past the first one.
Yes. There is no minimum company size, and sole traders and micro-businesses win public sector contracts regularly. Government has explicit targets for spending with small and medium-sized businesses, and a large proportion of published contracts are small enough for a firm with a handful of staff to deliver.
A widely used rule of thumb is that your annual turnover should be at least twice the annual value of the contract, so a £50,000 a year contract usually needs around £100,000 of turnover. This is guidance rather than law, and some buyers deliberately set lower thresholds to encourage SME bidders.
No. Buyers ask for comparable contracts, not specifically public sector ones. Private sector work of similar type, value and complexity is normally acceptable for your first bid, and once you have delivered one public contract everything afterwards becomes considerably easier.
Contracts Finder is the main official portal for England, covering contracts above £12,000 for central government and £30,000 for wider public bodies. Find a Tender covers higher value opportunities. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own portals, and most councils and NHS trusts also run their own e-tendering systems.
A straightforward contract under £100,000 typically takes 10 to 20 hours for a first-time bidder. Larger or two-stage procurements take considerably longer. The time drops substantially after your first few bids because you reuse case studies, policies and standard answers.
Yes. Registering on procurement portals and submitting bids is free. Your costs are your own time and any accreditations or insurance you need to hold, such as an SSIP scheme at a few hundred pounds a year.
A Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, now more often called a selection questionnaire, is the first stage of a two-stage procurement. It covers factual information about your company such as financials, insurance, accreditations, experience and compliance declarations, and determines whether you are invited to submit a full bid.
Public sector bodies are required to pay valid invoices within 30 days, and on larger contracts there are rules requiring those terms to be passed down the supply chain. This is generally more reliable than private sector payment behaviour and is one of the underrated advantages of public work.
TUPE transfers existing staff to the incoming contractor when a service changes provider. If a contract has an incumbent supplier, their staff usually transfer to you on their existing terms including pay and length of service. You must request the employee liability information and price the contract using those inherited wage costs.
Apply to a dynamic purchasing system in your sector and area. Applications are open all year, assessment is pass or fail against stated criteria rather than a competition, and once admitted you are invited to quote for call-off work without writing a full tender each time.