How to Win More Public Sector Contracts Next Year
Start by counting four numbers from last year: submissions made, submissions won, contract value secured, and average score where feedback exists. Almost no company can state them, and without them every change is guesswork. Then diagnose which of four problems you actually have, because they have different fixes: you are not seeing enough opportunities, you are pursuing too many of the wrong ones, eligibility gaps are blocking the good ones, or your submissions score just below the threshold. Doing the wrong fix costs you the year.
Key facts at a glance
- The four numbers to start from
- Submissions made, submissions won, contract value secured, and average score where feedback exists. Most companies cannot state any of them
- The free diagnostic nobody uses
- Scoring feedback on unsuccessful bids. You are entitled to it, it costs nothing, and it is the only objective assessment of your writing you will get
- What a score in the sixties means
- Almost always an evidencing problem rather than a capability problem. You can do the work; the submission did not prove it
- The cheapest improvement available
- Bidding for fewer things properly. Most companies improve their win rate fastest by declining more, not by writing more
- When to do the preparation
- April to July, while the tender season is quiet. By October the opportunities are already landing
- What compounds
- The evidence library. It is the only asset that makes every future submission cheaper, and it belongs to you
First, the four numbers
How many submissions did you make last year. How many did you win. What was the total contract value. What did you score, where you asked for feedback.
Very few companies can answer all four, and the reason matters: if nobody owns bidding, nobody counts it. Without a baseline, any change you make next year is unmeasurable, and you will end the year with the same argument about whether it is working.
These numbers also settle disagreements quickly. A company that made four submissions and won one does not have a win rate problem, it has a volume problem. A company that made thirty and won two has the opposite. Those need entirely different responses, and both are commonly misdiagnosed as needing a better bid writer.
Which of the four problems do you have?
You are not seeing enough opportunities. If tenders reach you through customers mentioning them or a colleague spotting something, you are seeing a fraction of what is published. The fix is monitoring, and it is the cheapest of the four: Find a Tender and Contracts Finder alerts cost nothing, and planned procurement notices tell you what is coming months ahead.
You are pursuing too many of the wrong ones. Bidding for everything is the most expensive habit in this field. It consumes the capacity that would have made three submissions excellent and produces twelve that are adequate. The fix is a written qualification rule agreed when nobody is under deadline pressure, and the discipline to decline.
Eligibility is blocking the good ones. If the contracts you actually want require a turnover you do not meet, an accreditation you do not hold, or references you cannot supply, no amount of writing changes the outcome. The fix is readiness work, it takes weeks to months, and it has to happen outside the tender season.
Your submissions score just below the threshold. Scores in the sixties, feedback that reads as faintly positive, and no contract. This is the most frustrating and the most fixable. It is almost always evidencing: the answers assert rather than prove, or answer a slightly different question from the one asked.
The evidencing problem, since it is the most common
Evaluators score against published criteria and can award marks only for what is in front of them. They cannot credit what they assume to be true about a competent company.
So "we operate a robust quality management system" scores nothing. "We hold ISO 9001, certificate number and body named, last surveillance audit March 2026 with no major non conformities, owned by our Quality Director" scores, because it can be checked.
The same applies to delivery. "Extensive experience in the sector" is worth less than one named contract with a value, a duration, an outcome and a client contact willing to confirm it.
Most companies have the evidence. It sits in project files, certificates in a drawer, and the heads of people who have been there ten years. The work is extraction and assembly, and once done it serves every future bid.
What a realistic year actually looks like
January to March: read every piece of feedback from the last cycle. Establish the four numbers. Decide which problem you have.
April to July: fix eligibility while it is cheap. Renew insurance to the levels your target contracts require, get accreditations current and in the correct legal entity, file accounts early, and write up case studies from projects completed while people still remember the detail.
August and September: read the planned procurement and prior information notices for your sector. This is the window where preparation is possible rather than frantic. Decide which two or three opportunities matter most in the coming season.
October to January: the season. Bid the ones you qualified for, properly. Decline the rest deliberately. Protect anything closing in early January by sorting its dependencies before the shutdown.
February and March: awards land. Request feedback on everything, won or lost, and start the cycle again from a better baseline.
Do it in house, or retain it?
In house works when you bid frequently and predictably. Above roughly two or three submissions a month sustained, an employed bid function is cheaper per submission and gives you capability that stays in the business. If that is your volume, hire, and use external help for overflow and specialist sections.
External support works when volume is lumpy, which for most companies under about £50m turnover it is. You are not paying for a full salary through the quiet months, and you get sector specialists rather than one person’s background.
The wrong answer is what most companies actually do, which is neither: bidding is added to somebody’s existing job, that person is also the one delivering the work, and the tender gets written in the evenings a week before the deadline. That arrangement produces the scores in the sixties described above, and it is not a budget decision so much as a decision nobody made.
Whichever route you choose, insist the evidence library belongs to you. If it leaves with the supplier, you are renting the same work again every year.
The cheapest three things you can do
Request feedback on every unsuccessful bid from this year. Free, you are entitled to it, and it is the only objective read on your writing you will ever get. The effort is one email per bid.
Set up alerts for your sector and region on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Free, takes under an hour, and it fixes the most common of the four problems.
Write down what you will not bid for. Free, takes a meeting, and it is the change that most reliably improves win rate, because it converts capacity from twelve adequate submissions into three good ones.
None of these requires a budget or a consultant. If you do only these, next year will be better than this one.
Frequently asked questions
How do we win more public sector contracts next year?
Diagnose before acting. Count submissions made, won, contract value and average score, then work out which of four problems you have: too few opportunities seen, too many pursued badly, eligibility gaps blocking the good ones, or submissions scoring just below the threshold. The fixes are different, and applying the wrong one costs a year.
We keep coming second. What does that mean?
Usually that your submission is evidencing rather than proving. Scores in the sixties with mildly positive feedback almost always mean the answers assert capability instead of demonstrating it with named contracts, certificate numbers, dates and responsible people. It is the most fixable of the four problems.
Should we bid for more tenders to win more?
Usually the opposite. Most companies improve their win rate fastest by bidding for fewer things properly. Twelve adequate submissions consume the capacity that would have produced three strong ones, and evaluators do not award marks for effort spread thinly.
When should we start preparing for next year?
Now for the diagnosis, and April to July for the work. The quiet months after the financial year starts are when eligibility, accreditations and case studies can be sorted calmly. By October the opportunities are landing and preparation has become improvisation.
Do we need to hire a bid manager?
Depends on volume. Above roughly two or three submissions a month sustained, an in house function is cheaper per submission and builds capability that stays. Below that you would be paying a full salary for partial utilisation. The arrangement to avoid is the common one, where bidding is added to the job of someone already delivering the work.
What is the single highest return thing we can do?
Request and read the scoring feedback on every bid you lost this year. It costs nothing, you are entitled to it, and it tells you exactly which of the four problems you have rather than leaving you to guess.
How long before a change in approach shows up in wins?
Six to nine months, because award decisions lag submissions by months and the tender season itself is annual. A change made in January affects bids submitted from the following October and awarded early the year after, which is why the diagnosis matters more than the speed.
Bring last year's numbers
Submissions made, submissions won, and any feedback you received. That is enough for us to tell you which of the four problems you have and what the cheapest fix is, including where the answer is something you can do yourselves for nothing. Call 020 3668 5488.