What regime is this tender in?
The Procurement Act 2023 commenced on 24 February 2025 for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, replacing the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for new procurements, with transitional arrangements keeping procurements commenced earlier on their legacy instruments. Scotland legislates separately. So the first question on any UK notice is not “what does the Act say” but “which instrument governs this procurement”: answered by the notice date, the buyer’s nation, and the transitional provisions, in that order. What changed for suppliers owns the old/new comparison and the legacy checklist.
This guide is informational: it maps the regime so a bid team recognises the instrument it is in. It is not legal advice and not a claim about product coverage: jurisdiction support for eligibility timing, evidence handling, currencies, and contract-risk interpretation is a separate product question we do not assert here.
Where do you find the work?
Find a Tender is the central digital platform’s public face, with a supplier information service behind one registration, not a third unrelated portal alongside two others. Legacy Contracts Finder routes persist for below-threshold and transitional work. Devolved nations run their own boards: Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI. Where to look is the route; the devolved page is the nation map. The portal used does not determine the applicable legislation, stated explicitly, because the confusion is common.
What will the bid require?
The procedure sets the shape: open versus competitive flexible, with different stages, evidence timing, and pursuit commitment: procedures compared. Frameworks and dynamic markets set the access question: entry cost now, call-off competition later; the decision tree, with the economics underneath on bid/no-bid for panels. Participation evidence, exclusion screening, and award criteria are separate tests answered in separate parts of the process: what to prove and when, exclusion and debarment, and MAT scoring.
What happens after award?
Assessment summaries, a standstill window where it applies, eight working days, and then contract, KPIs, payment terms, and performance notices as contractual obligations with scope and threshold exceptions. After the award decision is the timeline; KPIs and payment terms is the obligation hunt. Social value carries its own model and weighting bands, current and forthcoming: which model applies, with no universal 10 percent assumed.
Which buyers and terms need special handling?
English NHS buyers: clinical healthcare services may fall under the Provider Selection Regime rather than the Act; classify non-clinical, clinical, and mixed requirements before pursuing: when PSR applies. Security requirements (Cyber Essentials, ISO 27001, buyer-schedule controls) need certification, equivalence, evidence, and timing read together: the matrix. Terms are in the UK glossary, marked by nation and regime. Cross-market readers comparing all three regimes want AU, NZ and UK compared.
What is this not?
It is not a substitute for the notice, the buyer’s documents, or the legislation text on legislation.gov.uk, all of which outrank any summary here. It is not legal advice: where a clause would change the call, that is named review with a date. And it is not an argument that UK work suits every firm: distance, delivery presence, and participation evidence decide that before strategy does.