Construction tenders (UK): where to find them and which ones are worth bidding for

You want more work, and you've heard the councils and housing associations are always putting jobs out. But where are they? And which ones are worth a week of your evenings?

Most public construction tenders in the UK go on one free government website: Find a Tender. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also have their own sites for smaller jobs. Set up a free email alert for your trade and area, then only bid on the ones you can win and deliver.

In short

• Construction tenders from public buyers are published on Find a Tender, a free GOV.UK service.
• Smaller public jobs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also appear on their own sites.
• Make a free account to save your searches and get new tenders by email.
• You only need to register your firm when you want to bid.
• Before you bid, score the tender: can you win it, deliver it and get paid on time?

What are construction tenders?

Construction tenders are invitations from a client to price a building job and send in an offer to do it. The client compares the offers and picks one.

Public buyers like councils, schools, the NHS and government departments must usually advertise their bigger jobs. Private clients and main contractors also send out tenders, but they choose who to ask.

You'll hear "bid" and "tender" used for the same thing. Both mean your offer to do the work.

Where can you find construction tenders in the UK?

Start with Find a Tender, the UK government's central site for public sector tenders. From 24 February 2025, both bigger and smaller public tenders are published there, except smaller ones in Scotland.

Find a Tender's own page points you to these sites for smaller public contracts:

"Smaller" here means below the legal thresholds, but still over 12,000 pounds including VAT for central government, or £30,000 for other public buyers.

Search all of them for your area. A council job can turn up on more than one.

What counts as a smaller public contract?

A below-threshold contract is a public contract worth less than the legal threshold for full procurement rules. Under the Procurement Act 2023, a public buyer that advertises one must publish a tender notice on the central digital platform (Find a Tender).

These are the jobs most small contractors should look at first.

How do you set up construction tender alerts?

Make a free account on Find a Tender, save your search, and turn on email notifications. Then new jobs come to you instead of you hunting for them.

1. Go to Find a Tender and create a GOV.UK One Login, if you don't have one.
2. Search for your trade: for example "roofing", "electrical", "groundworks" or "refurbishment".
3. Add your area, so you only see jobs you can reach.
4. Save the search.
5. Sign up for email notifications for that search.
6. Do the same on the smaller-contract site for your country from the table above.

Use a few searches, not one. A sparky might save "electrical", "rewire", "fire alarm" and "lighting" as separate searches. Buyers word the same job in different ways.

Do you need to register to bid for construction tenders?

Yes, but only when you're ready to bid. GOV.UK's guidance says suppliers "only need to register at the point that they want to bid for a contract".

Registering is free. You set up your firm on Find a Tender and fill in your supplier information once.

Then you make a share code (a code that lets a buyer see your saved details). Or you download a file of it instead. You send that with your bid.

The tender documents tell you how the buyer wants it. Do this a few days before the deadline, not on the night.

Can small firms win public construction tenders?

Yes. Some of the rules for smaller public contracts help small firms have a go.

For a below-threshold contract, a public buyer can't run a separate stage to weed out suppliers on their size, finances or experience before tenders go in. The government's guidance says that kind of check "can be disproportionate and resource intensive". There is an exception for some bigger works contracts, so read the tender notice.

Public contracts also have payment rules on your side:

• The Procurement Act 2023 puts a 30-day payment term into every public contract, with a few exceptions such as contracts awarded by schools.
• The same payment terms apply to subcontracts that carry out part of a public contract.

So if you're a subbie on a public job, the main contractor should pay you within 30 days of your invoice too. Our guide to chasing an unpaid invoice covers what to do if they don't.

How do you find private and subcontract tenders?

Private work and subbie packages aren't on one public website. Main contractors and private clients usually invite firms they already know.

Ways to get on their lists:

• Ask the main contractors near you how to join their approved supplier list. They will tell you what they need, often a form or a pre-qualification questionnaire.
• Watch who wins the big public jobs in your area on Find a Tender. Then ask that main contractor about the subbie packages.
• Keep your insurances, health and safety policy and two or three photos of good jobs ready to send the same day.
• Price the first enquiries well and on time. Main contractors remember who sends a price back.

Which construction tenders are worth bidding for?

Bid only on construction tenders you can win, deliver and make money on. A quick score before you open the pricing document saves you wasted evenings.

Score each line from 0 to 2. Bid if you score 10 or more out of 14, and think hard between 7 and 9.

Any 0 on the pass or fail line means don't bid. You'll be marked out before anyone reads your price.

A worked example

Here's a worked example with a made-up firm. A two-person roofing firm in Leeds gets an alert for a school roof repair 20 miles away.

• Their trade and a normal size of job: 2.
• Close enough: 2.
• Free that month: 2.
• Have the insurances asked for: 2.
• Did a similar flat roof last year: 2.
• Deadline 9 days away, which is tight: 1.
• Scored 60 per cent quality, 40 per cent price, and they have good photos and references: 2.

That's 13 out of 14. Worth bidding. A job across the country on the same day would lose points on distance and people, and it would be a pass.

Our guide to the real cost of tendering helps you work out what each bid costs you in time.

How do you see construction tenders before they're advertised?

Look for pipeline notices. A big public buyer must publish a list of its planned contracts each year.

Under the Procurement Act 2023, a buyer that expects to spend more than 100 million pounds in a financial year must publish a pipeline notice. It must do this within 56 days of the start of that year. The notice covers contracts worth more than 2 million pounds that it plans to advertise.

Those are big jobs, often for main contractors. But a pipeline notice tells you which main contractors will soon be hunting for subbies near you.

What should you do once you've found a tender?

Read the whole pack before you price anything. Look for the deadline, the pass or fail questions, the scoring split and the clarification deadline (the last date to ask the buyer a question).

Then:

1. Score it with the table above.
2. List every question and every document you must send back.
3. Price up the job from the drawings and the bill of quantities, if there is one.
4. Write the quality answers. Our guide to bid writing in construction shows how buyers score them.
5. Check it all and submit a day early.

If you're using AI to help read the pack, our guide on how AI reads tender documents covers what to check.

Where Nexley fits

Nexley is the AI back office for UK trade firms. Five AI assistants do your office work overnight, from quotes and invoices to tenders and supplier orders, and you approve each one from WhatsApp.

Finding the tender is the easy bit. Pricing it is what eats your evenings.

Once you've decided a tender is worth bidding for, Nexley reads the pack you send: drawings, specification, preliminaries and the pricing document. It measures the quantities off the drawings and prices the bill on your own rates. It also gathers your questions for the architect into one request.

Nexley drafts the quality answers from your real capability and track record, for you to edit and own. It doesn't submit anything: you check it all first. See how AI tendering software works, or look at Nexley's pricing.

Common questions

Are construction tenders free to find?

Yes, public construction tenders are free to find. GOV.UK says Find a Tender "is free to use for everyone", and you can search and set up alerts at no cost.

Some private companies sell tender alert services that gather tenders from many sites. You don't need one to find public jobs, but they can save time if you cover a wide area.

How do I find small construction tenders near me?

Search Find a Tender for your trade and your area. Then save that search and turn on email alerts.

In Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, set up the same search on Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales or eTendersNI too. Councils and housing associations are a good place to start.

How do I apply for construction tenders?

You apply by sending back the documents the tender asks for before the deadline. That's usually a price, written answers and your supplier details from Find a Tender.

Register your firm on Find a Tender when you're ready to bid. The tender notice and documents tell you how to submit, sometimes through the buyer's own online system.

What is tendering in construction?

Tendering in construction is the process of a client asking contractors to price a job, then choosing one. It runs from the tender notice to the award of the contract.

On a competitive public tender under the Procurement Act 2023, the buyer must publish how it will score the bids before they go in. That's why reading the scoring section first matters so much.

Sources

This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Every tender sets its own rules, so the tender notice and documents always come first.

• Find a Tender service (GOV.UK) (find-tender.service.gov.uk)
• Central Digital Platform factsheet (GOV.UK) (gov.uk)
• Guidance: below-threshold contracts under the Procurement Act 2023 (GOV.UK) (gov.uk)
• PPN 019: Update to legal requirements to publish procurement information on Contracts Finder (GOV.UK) (gov.uk)
• Procurement Act 2023, section 68: implied payment terms in public contracts (legislation.gov.uk) (legislation.gov.uk)
• Procurement Act 2023, section 73: payment terms in public subcontracts (legislation.gov.uk) (legislation.gov.uk)
• Procurement Act 2023, section 93: pipeline notices (legislation.gov.uk) (legislation.gov.uk)