Guide
Deciding whether to bid
The most valuable skill in public sector bidding is declining. Every hour spent on an unwinnable tender is an hour not spent on a winnable one, and the documents almost always tell you which it is on the first read.
Last checked: 6 October 2026
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Why this step exists
Most firms new to public sector work bid too much and win too little. The pattern is consistent: an opportunity looks interesting, someone starts writing, the problems surface on day three, and the bid goes in anyway because of the effort already spent.
A qualification step exists to make that decision once, early, on evidence, before the sunk cost starts arguing.
The honest arithmetic
A serious response to a mid-sized tender is several days of skilled time. If you bid five and win one, each win cost you the effort of five. Declining two of those five and winning the same one makes you forty per cent more efficient without writing a better word.
The four questions
Work through these before writing anything. A clear no on any of the first three should end it.
| Question | Bid if |
|---|---|
| Can we meet every mandatory requirement? | No pass or fail gate is missing: turnover, insurance, certification, staffing, geography, accreditations. |
| Do we have the evidence? | Recent, relevant, named case studies exist with measurable results, not just capability we could describe. |
| Can we differentiate on the published criteria? | You can point to where you would score better than a competent competitor, using the buyer's own weightings. |
| Are the terms and the maths acceptable? | Liability, payment, data and termination are manageable, and the expected margin justifies the bid cost. |
The mandatory requirements come first
Check pass and fail gates before anything else, because they are absolute. A minimum turnover you do not meet, an accreditation you do not hold, or an insurance level you cannot obtain will end the bid regardless of how good the response is.
These usually sit in the selection questionnaire or the instructions, not the specification, which is why people writing to the spec find them late.
Evidence, not capability
There is a difference between being able to do the work and being able to prove you have done it. Evaluators score the second. If your strongest example is four years old, in a different sector, or a project where you were a subcontractor whose role is hard to describe, you are at a structural disadvantage that good writing will not fix.
That is a reason to no-bid this one and go and build the evidence somewhere smaller, not a reason to bid harder.
Differentiation against the published weightings
The tender tells you where the marks are. If quality is weighted at 60% and split across five questions, you can see precisely which five things the buyer cares about. Ask whether you would beat a competent competitor on those specific things.
“We would do a good job” is not differentiation. Everyone bidding would do a good job. Something you can evidence that the typical bidder cannot is differentiation.
The incumbent question
If there is an incumbent, find out who. Award notices are published, so this is knowable rather than guessable, and our buyer pages show who holds what.
The received wisdom is that incumbents are almost impossible to displace. If that were true, nothing would ever change hands. It does, and we can put a number on how often.
Measured from the award data
Of 4,399 contracts we can see being re-tendered by the same buyer under the same name, 53% changed supplier. Incumbency is an advantage, not a lock. Close to half of these competitions were won by somebody else.
So the question is not whether an incumbent can be beaten. It is whether this incumbent, on this contract, is beatable by you. A supplier who is performing well, whose buyer is happy and who helped shape the specification is a hard target in a single competition. One whose service has visibly struggled, or whose contract has been quietly extended twice because nobody got round to re-tendering it, is not.
- Bid when the specification has visibly changed, when the service has publicly struggled, when the buyer has changed leadership, or when you have a genuine structural advantage such as location, capacity or an accreditation the incumbent lacks.
- Think harder when the specification reads like a description of the current supplier and price carries a small share of the marks. That combination usually means the buyer has already decided what good looks like.
- Either way, note the end date. Arriving eighteen months early and being a known quantity is worth more than any amount of effort in the three weeks you get once the tender is published.
The figure above counts contracts where the same buyer awarded the same named contract again at least six months later, and only where a single supplier was named, because a framework has no one incumbent to displace. Re-tenders that were renamed will not be caught, so treat it as a real measure of a real subset rather than a number for the whole market.
A checklist for the small print
The four questions decide whether you can win. These decide whether you want to. Each is in the tender documents if you look, usually in the instructions, the pricing schedule and the draft contract rather than the specification.
| Check | Warning sign |
|---|---|
| How price is weighted and scored | Price worth 50% or more, scored against the lowest bid: unless you are genuinely cheaper, quality will not close the gap. |
| What the value actually means | An "up to £X" or maximum framework value with no indication of expected spend. The headline is a ceiling, not a forecast. |
| How many suppliers will be appointed | Several suppliers on a framework or lot, with work by further competition: winning a place is the start of the selling, not the end. |
| Penalties and service credits | Deductions for missing KPIs that could wipe out your margin, or targets you cannot measure from day one. |
| Liability and insurance | Unlimited liability, or a cap far above the contract value, and insurance levels you would have to buy specially. |
| Staff transfer (TUPE) | A service contract where the current provider's staff may transfer to you. Ask for the staff list and costs before you price. |
| Payment and mobilisation | Payment only on milestones far into the contract, or a start date that leaves no time to recruit or buy equipment. |
| Time to respond | A deadline of days, not weeks, for a substantial response, especially with a holiday in the middle. |
None of these is a reason to walk away on its own. Two or three together, on a contract where you have no edge, usually are. Where something is unclear, ask a clarification question: the answer goes to every bidder, and a buyer asked how much work it expects to put through a framework often says. Staff transfer is governed by the TUPE Regulations 2006; if it might apply, take advice before you price.
A no-bid is a decision, not a failure
Record it. What you declined, why, and what would have to be true for you to bid next time. That list becomes your development plan: the accreditation to get, the reference to build, the partner to find.
It also tells you whether your alerting is pointed at the right market. If you are declining most of what reaches you for the same reason every time, the filter is wrong, not the market.
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Common questions
Qualifying an opportunity
How do I decide whether to bid for a tender?
Test it against four things before writing anything: whether you can meet every mandatory requirement, whether you have recent relevant evidence, whether you can differentiate on the published criteria, and whether the contract terms are acceptable. A clear failure on any one of those is a no-bid, regardless of how attractive the work looks.
What is a bid/no-bid decision?
A deliberate qualification step between finding an opportunity and starting work on the response. Its purpose is to stop bid effort going into tenders you cannot win, so that effort concentrates on the ones you can.
Is it worth bidding if there is an incumbent?
Yes, often. Of the contracts we can see being re-tendered by the same buyer under the same name, close to half changed supplier, so incumbency is an advantage rather than a lock. The question is whether this particular incumbent is beatable: one performing well who helped write the specification is a hard target, one whose service has struggled or whose contract has been extended twice is not. Either way, identifying the contract early and being known before the re-tender is worth more than effort spent in the three weeks after it appears.
How much does bidding cost?
For a small firm, a serious response to a mid-sized tender typically takes several days of skilled time, and considerably more for a framework application or multi-stage procedure. That is the real number to weigh against the expected margin, and it is why declining well is worth as much as writing well.
What are the warning signs that a tender is not worth bidding for?
A heavy price weighting when you are not the cheapest, a headline value that is only a ceiling, many suppliers sharing a framework, penalties or liability out of proportion to the contract, staff transfer you have not priced, and a deadline too short for a proper answer. One on its own is manageable; several together on a contract where you have no edge usually mean no-bid.
What does "up to £X" mean in a tender?
It is a maximum, not a promise. Frameworks and call-off contracts often publish the most that could be spent across all buyers and suppliers over the whole term. Ask in a clarification question what spend the buyer expects, and divide by the number of suppliers appointed before deciding the work is worth the bid.