How to decide whether a public sector tender is worth bidding for

The most expensive tender is the one you should never have entered. A typical public sector submission takes an SME somewhere between two and ten working days to prepare. Spend that time on the wrong opportunity and you lose twice: once on the wasted effort, and again on the winnable contract you did not have time to pursue.

This guide sets out a practical bid/no-bid process you can run in under an hour, before any writing starts.

Step 1: Check the mandatory requirements first

Every tender contains pass/fail requirements. If you fail one, nothing else matters — your bid will be rejected regardless of quality. Check these before reading anything else:

• Insurance levels. Buyers commonly require £5m or £10m public liability cover. If you carry £2m, you either increase it or walk away.
• Financial thresholds. Many buyers apply a rule of thumb that the annual contract value should not exceed a percentage of your turnover (often 25–50%). A £600k-a-year contract may be out of reach for a £800k-turnover business.
• Accreditations. Some contracts require specific certifications — for example, Constructionline, CHAS or ISO standards — as a condition of entry, not a nice-to-have.
• Experience requirements. "Provide three examples of similar contracts delivered in the last five years" is a mandatory question in disguise. If you have one example, you have a problem.

If you fail a mandatory requirement, record why and move on. That knowledge is useful: it tells you what to fix before the next opportunity.

Step 2: Assess genuine suitability

Passing the entry requirements does not make an opportunity right for you. Ask:

• Is this actually the work we do? Not "could we probably do it" — is it the work you have evidence of doing well?
• Can we deliver at this location and scale? A contract across an entire county is very different from one on your doorstep.
• Does the contract size fit? Too large is risky; too small may not justify the bid effort and ongoing contract administration.
• Do the timescales work? Check both the submission deadline and the contract start date against your current commitments.

Step 3: Be honest about your evidence

Tenders are scored on what you can prove, not what you can do. Before committing, list the evidence the tender will need — case studies, policies, staff qualifications, performance data — and check what you actually have written down.

A business that delivers excellent work but has no documented case studies will lose to a mediocre competitor with a well-organised evidence library. If your evidence is thin, it is often smarter to skip this tender and spend the time building your procurement readiness for the next one.

Step 4: Consider the competition

You will rarely know exactly who else is bidding, but you can reason about it:

• An incumbent supplier usually has an advantage. Check whether the contract is a renewal and who holds it now.
• Heavily weighted price evaluation favours larger firms with economies of scale. Heavily weighted quality favours specialists with strong evidence.
• Very broad, high-value contracts attract national bidders. Local, specialised or reactive work favours regional SMEs.

Step 5: Make the decision — and record it

Score the opportunity honestly across the four areas above. A simple rule that serves SMEs well: bid only when you pass every mandatory requirement, the work is genuinely yours, and you can evidence it. Two out of three is a no-bid.

Whatever you decide, write the decision down with a sentence of reasoning. After a few months you will have a record that shows which kinds of opportunity you win, which you lose, and which gaps keep costing you.

How Bid Sense handles this

This checklist is exactly the process Bid Sense automates. It checks eligibility, suitability, readiness, competitiveness and data confidence for each opportunity and gives you a clear recommendation with the reasoning shown — usually before you would have finished downloading the tender documents. Recommendations support your decision rather than replace it, and no tool can guarantee a win.

If you would like that on every opportunity you look at, join the early access list.