Winning your first public sector contract

New winners are common

Of the 15,853 suppliers that won a UK public contract in the twelve months to 6 October 2026, 5,861 (37%) had not won one in our records since 2021. That counts every supplier once, matching the different spellings of the same company, so it is a fair measure of new entrants rather than of name changes.

And small firms do best on smaller contracts:

Single-supplier contracts awarded in the twelve months to 6 October 2026, where the buyer recorded whether the winner was an SME.

Start small, and start local

Your best first contract is usually a small one from a buyer near you, for work you already do well. Smaller contracts ask for less paperwork, attract fewer bidders and are often decided on a straightforward quote. Below the thresholds, a buyer in England, Wales or Northern Ireland that invites tenders cannot screen you out on an assessment of your capacity before you bid (section 85 of the Procurement Act 2023), and must consider the barriers small firms face (section 86). Some smaller contracts can even be reserved for SMEs or voluntary sector organisations.

• Register on the procurement systems of the councils near you, and ask to be added to their quotation lists.
• In Scotland, complete your Supplier Finder profile on Public Contracts Scotland: buyers can only invite suppliers registered there to Quick Quotes, which are used for low-value requirements. The free Supplier Development Programme runs tender training and Meet the Buyer events for Scottish SMEs.
• Search what is open now with the tender finder, and see where tenders are published.

Experience questions without public sector references

A buyer cannot require you to have held a previous contract with it, and every condition must be proportionate to the contract (section 22). Private sector work counts. What loses marks is leaving the evaluator to work out why an example is relevant, so spell it out: the same kind of service, a similar scale, the same risks handled, and the result.

Turnover, accounts and insurance

The old rule capping turnover requirements at twice the contract value went with the 2015 regulations. Now requirements must simply be proportionate. Central government's financial standing guidance treats turnover of about twice the annual contract value as low risk and tells buyers not normally to exclude a bidder on turnover alone, with alternatives such as a parent company guarantee. A buyer also cannot demand audited accounts from a company not legally required to have them, or require contract insurance to be in place before award (section 22).

What to have ready before your first bid

• Your registration on Find a Tender, the Central Digital Platform, with your supplier information complete: tenders under the Procurement Act ask for its share code.
• Current insurance certificates, and the levels you could raise to if you win.
• Health and safety, equality, environmental and modern slavery statements in your own words, specific to your business.
• Cyber Essentials if you will handle personal or government data: central government and NHS bodies must require it, or equivalent controls, for those contracts.
• A carbon reduction plan only if you are going for large central government contracts: it is required for contracts above £5 million a year including VAT.
• Three or four case studies you can adapt, each with a client, the problem, what you did and the result.

Keep these in one place and update them once a year. After the first few bids, most of each new response is adapting what you already have.

Learn from every bid, and know you will be paid

When you lose a tender under the Procurement Act, you receive an assessment summary with your scores and how the winning tender was assessed (section 50). Read it against the questions, fix one weakness at a time, and ask the buyer for a conversation if they offer one.

Public contracts carry a 30-day payment term for valid, undisputed invoices, and the same term passes down to subcontracts (sections 68, 73 and 88). If a first contract is too large to take on alone, being a subcontractor to a firm that wins it is a sound way in: find out who wins your kind of work.