Making the Most of the
New UK Pipeline Notices

Are you seizing the opportunity? The 26 May marked the deadline for Contracting Authorities to publish their Pipeline Notices on the UK Find a Tender Service.

In this article we review the requirements for these notices and look at the benefits for suppliers. We also delve into how to make the most of these early opportunities supported by the TenderEyes Bid Management solution.

Pipeline Notices – Legislative Requirements

The new UK Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025, reshaping how public, utilities, and defence contracts are bid for and awarded. The new legislation sets out to simplify and improve the process for both contracting authorities and suppliers.

The Act looks to provide greater transparency and information sharing, with Contracting Authorities required to consider the whole procurement process. From initial market engagement through to contract award.

One of the new requirements is for larger Contracting Authorities that spend over £100 million per year to publish a Pipeline Notice that provides details of their intended spend over the following 18-month period. This notice is to include all opportunities worth over £2 million.

These Pipeline Notices are live from 1 April 2025 and must be published no later than 56 days later – by the 26 May, on the UK Find a Tender Service Public Procurement Portal.

Contracting Authorities are encouraged to amend or republish these Pipeline Notices to keep information up to date but must do so at least annually. They may also choose to include opportunities below the £2 million threshold. Contracting Authorities who are not sure to reach the £100 million annual spend are also encouraged to publish Pipeline Notices.

A total of 3887 Pipeline Notices were published between 1 April and 26 May 2025. These included Notices for a wide variety of work for Hospital Trusts, County and Local Authorities and Housing Associations etc. UK Find a Tender Service 

Pipeline Notice: Benefits

The new Pipeline Notices offers several benefits for suppliers including:

• Increased Transparency: Better understanding and clarity on Contracting Authorities’ planned expenditure and future contracts.

• Greater Insight: Provides forewarning of potential new or previously lost opportunities to work towards. As well as identifying possible threats to existing won contracts if future contract renewals are intended to be altered or cancelled by the Contracting Authority.

• Improved Forward Planning: Allows for better informed strategy development based on the above insight as well as improved forecasting for your opportunity pipeline and earlier resource planning.

• Pre-Market Engagement: Opportunities to engage with Contracting Authorities early in the process to introduce new innovations and tailored solutions, thus helping shape the details of future Tenders.

• New Entrants: Allows new entrants, SMEs and VCSEs to plan for future opportunities, secure partners and bid for work previously outside of their scope. This of course will also increase competition for existing suppliers but may bring new opportunities in partnerships.

• Proactive Preparedness: Allows for earlier pursuit decisions and actions ahead of the tight deadlines associated with Contract Notices. As well as engagement with the Contracting Authority this can also include:

• • Product reviews and development
  • Pricing reviews and revisions
  • Analysis of previous tender submissions and individual answers (evaluation scores and Contracting Authority feedback) for identification of content and quality gaps
  • Review of any existing won contracts for identification of renewal risks and challenges.
  • Review of lost contracts to establish probability of winning next time round.

This allows proactive and pre–Contract Notice work to be undertaken to establish and undertake areas for improvement and strengthen competitive advantage. Bid Teams and SMEs can work towards improving content and documents ahead of the tight tender deadlines – giving them better opportunity to finesse and improve quality.

Pipeline Notices: Improving Engagement and Pursuit

With Sales and Bid Teams under so much pressure to win public procurement contracts, it is vital that they have the technology and support tools to manage the complexities involved.

Spreadsheets and email will no longer suffice, significantly hampering submission quality and win probabilities.

Using a dedicated fully integrated solution that addresses the whole bid journey, such as the TenderEyes Bid Management system is a gamechanger in the pursuit and delivery of high-value Public Procurement Contracts.

The solution can also be used to monitor and address Pipeline Notices. This will help ensure your early action and engagement with the Procurement Agency involved as well as pre-prepare to respond to the subsequent tender when published.

With TenderEyes you can benefit from:

• Sourcing Pipeline Notices: The automatic inclusion of Pipeline Notices with the TenderEyes Opportunities Manager Triage area, allowing for the early identification of these new opportunities.

• Qualifying Pipeline Notices: Pipeline Notices can then be assessed and allocated for decisions on how to proceed. This may follow the same qualification process and criteria as you have set up for your Tender Notices. However, you could also choose to set up a different process with different qualification criteria, decision gates and approvals.

• Mobilising Pipeline Notice Projects: Once you’ve chosen to pursue a Pipeline Notice opportunity, you can quickly set up and mobilise your project in TenderEyes Project Workspace. Assign team members, schedule meetings, define project stages and tasks, and track progress—all while maintaining a clear record of key information and decisions.

• Procurement Agency Engagement: Until the Tender Notice is published, you can actively engage and communicate with the Procuring Agency. Pipeline Notices enable you to implement structured engagement plans, fostering stronger relationships and trust. TenderEyes supports this by recording all communications, meetings, and outcomes within the Pipeline Project. This valuable intelligence can inform your go/no-go decisions and enhance your tender response strategy when the Tender Notice is released.

• Product Development & Positioning: Pipeline Notices provide early insight into emerging industry needs. Giving your product team access to TenderEyes allows them to identify potential opportunities and threats. Involving them in the Pipeline Project can drive innovation and ensure your sales team is effectively positioning relevant solutions to the Procuring Agency before the tender stage.

• Bid Improvements: Whether you had submitted and won or lost the previous contract and have the information within TenderEyes, you can make use of this intelligence. You can review the previous project and establish:

• • Any potential changes to the Contracting Authority requirements.
  • Submission evaluation scores and identify low scoring responses that can be improved for the next submission.
  • Contract delivery performance and results to find areas for improvement for the next contract as well as assess pricing and profits margins to establish a new pricing model for the renewal.
  • If previously lost, you can delve into the winning supplier and establish potential stronger areas of competitive advantage for the next submission.

In Summary

Properly reviewing and taking the above actions for Pipeline Notices will help put you in a much stronger position to respond when the Tender Notices are published. Saving you valuable time, securing greater competitive advantage and delivering stronger propositions.