The Nexley Tender Clock: how long UK construction tenders give you to price

How long do UK construction tenders give you to price?

It depends most on who is asking. Public bodies gave a typical 28 days, which is about four weeks. Main contractors offering a subcontract package gave a typical 12 days, less than half as long. “Typical” here means the middle value: half the tenders gave more time and half gave less.

Across all 581 tenders, 156 gave less than two weeks and 258 gave less than three. If you price tenders, you will often have less than a month, and sometimes less than a fortnight.

Why are subcontract packages so much shorter?

Big public contracts have legal minimum time limits under the Procurement Act 2023. A main contractor's subcontract package is a private deal between two firms, so no such minimum applies. The packages in this study came from main contractors and project companies working on large public jobs, such as HS2, Sizewell C, Heathrow, road and rail schemes, and defence sites.

For a subcontractor, that is where the pressure sits. 146 of the 174 packages (more than 8 in 10) gave less than three weeks to read the pack, measure the drawings, get supplier prices and send a priced return.

Do bigger jobs give you more time?

Not from public bodies. A job under 100 thousand pounds and one over 2 million both got about four weeks. The table shows public bodies only, so the short contractor packages don't skew it.

Where a value was given, the middle tender was worth about 258 thousand pounds (472 of the 581 notices stated a value).

Does your trade make a difference?

Hardly. For public bodies, every trade got between 27 days and 31 days. Roofing tenders were the most generous and electrical the least. The trade comes from the codes buyers choose (CPV codes), and one tender can count under more than one trade.

The squeeze falls on the trades that get the most contractor packages. In this data that was roads, highways and pipelines (49 packages) and groundworks and site preparation (31).

Which day is the deadline usually?

Friday is the most common deadline, then Monday. A Monday deadline usually means the pricing happens over the weekend.

Only 17 deadlines fell on a Saturday or Sunday. Deadlines are in UK time.

What does this mean if you price tenders?

• Open the pack the day it lands. Many packs set a cut-off for questions before the main deadline, so a pack left for a week can lose you the chance to ask.
• Count back from the deadline, not forward from today. Allow time for supplier and subcontractor prices to come back before you can finish yours.
• Watch out for Monday deadlines. Start on the Wednesday before, or the weekend goes on pricing.
• Keep your rates ready. Labour rates, material prices and your usual allowances in one place save a day on every tender. Our guide to the tender cost of a lost bid shows why that day matters.
• Ask main contractors for the drawings early. With a typical 12 days on a package, the measuring is usually what runs out of time.

Where Nexley fits

Nexley prices your tenders and runs your office, all on WhatsApp. It reads the tender pack, measures the take-offs from the drawings and builds a bill of quantities priced from your own rates, so a two-week deadline starts with a priced draft instead of a blank sheet. You check everything before it goes. See AI tendering and estimating and take-offs and bills of quantities.

How we worked this out

• Source: every notice on Contracts Finder with a construction code (CPV division 45, “construction work”) and the type “contract”, first published between 20 October 2025 and 22 October 2026. We read them through the site's public search service on 23 October 2026.
• What counts as a tender: notices that were open, closed, or later awarded after their deadline. We left out award-only notices (published after the work was let), withdrawn notices, duplicates, works outside the UK, and windows under 2 days or over a year.
• Time to price: calendar days from the moment the notice was published to the deadline, weekends included.
• Subcontract packages: notices posted by a main contractor, a joint venture or a project company, or titled as a supply chain notice. Everything else counts as a public body.
• Limits: Contracts Finder doesn't hold every UK tender. Many bigger contracts appear only on Find a Tender, Scotland and Wales use their own portals, and private work isn't covered. Treat the figures as a fair picture of public construction work in England, not a census.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Can I quote these numbers?

Yes, please do. Credit “Nexley Tender Clock” and link to this page. The summary table is free to download as a spreadsheet file: Nexley Tender Clock data (CSV). We refresh the figures every month, and the date at the top of the page shows the latest check.