Tendering in 2026: what has changed and what still wins

At Always Possible we bid for a lot of public work. From research, evaluation and communications contracts to engagement and strategy commissions for councils, universities, the NHS and charities. On a busy month we have more than fifty live opportunities on our opportunities board. We win a decent share. We also lose plenty. Sometimes this is because of the nature of a competitive market. Sometimes it is entirely our own stupid fault.

Here is what has shifted over the last eighteen months, and what we have learned.

1. Get on the Central Digital Platform today

The enhanced Find a Tender service, better known as the Central Digital Platform, went live in February 2025. It holds your core business details in one place, so you are not retyping your company number and turnover into a different portal every time you’re submitting a proposal.

Since April 2026 - if you are awarded a below-threshold public contract, you need to be registered and hold a unique supplier identifier at the point of award (you do not need it to bid, only to win). You need to keep your details, such as accounts and any legal issues that might come up in due diligence, up to date.

It takes minutes. But don’t let those minutes be 5 minutes before the submission deadline.

2. Social value is getting narrower and heavier

If you have spent the past few years assembling a social value answer that covers carbon, wellbeing, community partnerships and a beach clean, brace yourself.

PPN 026, published in August, applies to central government contracts from January 2027. It strips social value back primarily to two things - good jobs and skills. The weighting also goes up. Contracts between £1m and £5m carry a minimum of 10 per cent. Anything at £5m or above carries a minimum of 20 per cent, plus a mandatory social value KPI you will be held to long after award.

Smaller Sussex businesses might not all be chasing £5m central government contracts but local authorities and smaller commissioners tend to follow the central lead within a year or so, and often set weightings above the minimum.

Our own lesson here was expensive. We are good at social value, and it runs through our work like writing through a stick of rock. From pro bono sessions for voluntary sector organisations to work with schools and colleges, spending on local suppliers and building low waste and low carbon principles into our delivery.

But we lost a county council commission last year where our method scored well and our social value answer scored zero. Not low. Zero. The bar had been raised, and the expectation was much higher than we were used to. Additionality is key - not outcomes that might naturally arise from the way you deliver anyway. Many clients are now looking for clear and accountable above-and-beyond work. We support the rationale behind this, if it is proportionate, but it caught us off guard. Whatever your product or service - think about how to up your social value game.

3. There are far more bidders than there used to be

AI has pushed the cost of entering a competition down. Anyone can now produce a fluent, compliant, correctly structured 500-word answer in an afternoon. Most procurement guidance is also quite relaxed about suppliers using it, seeing it as equivalent to hiring a bid writer.

The consequence might not be that bids have got worse. It is that they are now very similar. Evaluators are working through a dozen well-written, bland responses that say more or less the same things in more or less the same order. We see procurement teams answering word-for-word identical clarification questions from dozens of different suppliers.

Tenders are technical documents, but at Always Possible we make sure we know what differentiates us. And usually that is the confidence to show up differently, or to examine a problem in a different way.

So what separates you? Be specific. Don’t list why you’re great. Be clear on why you’re great for this contract, in this way, at this price - with evidence of exactly how you know this. Don’t rely on vibes, or that the evaluator has heard of you.

Be clear about who exactly will actually do the work - and be credible (it probably shouldn’t be your CEO and it probably shouldn’t be your apprentice). Include a line on what that person did last time and what changed as a result.

Give credible numbers but don’t bore or blind people. Decide on risks that you are willing to name out loud; it is not believable to offer miracles. Be clear about what your concerns might be with elements of the contract and how you might approach solving them.

Have a point of view, and a corporate personality; it’s OK. AI might help you with technical framing but it has no idea how to show that you can be trusted with complicated client data that comes in late, in an incompatible format, three hours before your analysis report is due. [Insert similar example for your sector here].

4. The dull stuff loses more bids than the writing does

Automated credit scores can lag reality by a year or more, so if your accounts had a difficult patch, explain it yourself before the algorithm does it for you. Keep policies dated and current. And note that the Procurement Act stops buyers requiring you to hold insurance before award, so you do not need to buy cover speculatively just to look compliant. But it needs to be credible that you’ll have it in place before delivery starts.

Most of the tenders we lose, we lose on price or geography or because we ticked the wrong box somewhere. Almost never because we didn’t articulate who we are, what we do, how we do it and why this solves a problem for the client. So, even if you are good at the writing, get someone involved who really likes small print and checklists.

How we work

Always Possible is a small Sussex business, winning public contracts for over 11 years. We’ve got better at putting together the right team, pricing honestly and saying no to things we would not be good at.

If you are weighing up a tender and want a second pair of eyes on whether it is worth your while, we might be able to offer some critical friendship.

Richard Freeman is Founder and Chief Executive of Always Possible. Find out more here.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk