How TenderWorthy checks tenders for your trade

Most tender alerts tell you that a notice exists. TenderWorthy also checks what the notice says against your business, so you spend your time on tenders you could actually bid for. This page walks through what happens between a notice being published and the email landing in your inbox.

How most tender alerts work

A typical alert service watches the public notice sites, matches each new notice against keywords, CPV codes and a region you chose, and emails you the list. CPV codes are the standard vocabulary buyers use to classify what they are buying, and they are a good way to find relevant notices.

That approach is strong on coverage. Its gap is fit. A keyword match cannot tell you that the buyer wants £10 million public liability cover when you hold £5 million, or that a certificate is mandatory at bid stage. Plenty of owners find that out after an hour spent on the tender documents.

What happens to a notice, step by step

Overnight: we collect new and updated notices

Every night we collect new and updated notices from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Find a Tender is the central digital platform for notices under the Procurement Act 2023. Since 24 February 2025 the Procurement Act hasn’t required any notice to go on Contracts Finder: new procurements, above or below threshold, only need notices on Find a Tender. Contracts Finder still carries notices for procurements started under the old rules (PPN 019 guidance). The same opportunity can appear on both, so we remove duplicates.

We read what the notice states

On Pro, a notice is checked only if its CPV codes overlap with your profile, it is not clearly outside your travel radius, its wording matches your trade and it does not close within three days. For those notices, a language model reads the notice text and records what it says about insurance, certifications, registrations and licences, location, turnover, other conditions such as security clearance, and lots, and how closely the work matches what you do. For each requirement it quotes the notice wording it relied on. A requirement without a quoted passage is dropped before scoring.

Fixed rules compare, and where they stop

Fixed rules in our code then compare what the notice states with your profile: insurance levels, the certifications we map, any minimum turnover the notice states, and how far the work is from your postcode and your travel radius. A required registration or licence, any certification we do not map, and a location requirement where we cannot work out the distance (for example a notice tagged only “UK” or with no region) are read from the notice by the model and are not compared by a fixed rule. If the model reads a mandatory registration, licence, certification or location requirement of this kind as clearly not met, the notice (or, for a notice in lots, that lot) is still left out of your morning digest, so check it against the notice wording; a turnover shortfall is flagged instead. Where we can work out the distance, or your travel radius is UK-wide, our distance check replaces the model’s reading of location, so check any other location condition, such as a local office, in the notice yourself. A notice that gives no delivery location we can measure (for example, no delivery postcode we can place and a region of only “UK” or none) is not left out just because of that: if your travel radius is below UK-wide and we have placed your postcode, it is shown with a “Location not stated” flag (amber in your morning digest) so you can check where the work is done, and the flag does not change its score. If your profile has no level recorded for a type of insurance the notice asks for, or no turnover when the notice states a minimum, the rules never treat it as met and flag it to confirm in the tender pack.

Each morning: one digest

On Pro, each morning on days with new matches, you get one email with the tenders that fit, the points that need confirming and a link to the official notice for each. Where a notice is split into lots, we assess each lot and show the best-fitting one. Once it starts, free accounts get a weekly unchecked list for one sector.

A worked example

This example is illustrative. It is not a real notice and no real business is described. It shows how the outcomes work.

Imagine a notice for cleaning a council office building in the West Midlands, giving the site’s postcode, with a stated value of £300,000, which is above the £207,720 goods and services threshold for sub-central authorities (from 1 January 2026, including VAT). The notice says bidders need £5 million public liability cover, £10 million employers’ liability cover and ISO 9001 certification, and it says bidders need professional indemnity cover “as set out in the tender documents”. Now imagine a cleaning firm 30 miles from the site with a 50-mile travel radius, £5 million public liability, £10 million employers’ liability and no ISO 9001 certificate.

Because ISO 9001 is mandatory and the firm does not hold it, the notice is left out of the morning digest. If the notice allowed the certificate to be obtained before award, it would not be ruled out: if the work matched closely enough, the digest would show it with ISO 9001 to obtain before award and the professional indemnity question to confirm in the tender pack.

One timing point on insurance. On above-threshold contracts a buyer cannot require insurance relating to performance of the contract to be in place before award (s.22(3)(b)), except cover you must hold by law anyway, such as employers’ liability (conditions of participation guidance, para 20). So a shortfall on public liability is cover you would need by award, not an automatic bar to bidding. Our rules do not make that allowance: if your cover is below a mandatory level the notice states, the notice is left out of the digest unless the notice itself says the cover can be in place by award. Below threshold, s.85 bars a separate suitability stage before tenders (except below-threshold works contracts worth £135,018 or more for central government, or £207,720 or more for others, s.85(3)), but suitability can still be assessed at award.

Three results you will see

• Fits. The notice states a requirement and your profile clearly meets it.
• Does not fit. The notice states a mandatory requirement and your profile clearly does not meet it. Where a notice says you can obtain something later, for example before award, we say so instead.
• Confirm in the tender pack. The notice asks for something but is vague about it or defers to the tender documents, or your profile has no level recorded for an insurance cover the notice asks for. It is never shown as a pass. A requirement the notice does not mention at all is not flagged. In the week to 10 Oct 2026 only about 6% of live notices stated insurance requirements in the notice itself, and about 6% stated named certifications, so most of these sit in the tender pack. See what we can and can’t see.

Setting up your profile

You tell us your trade or sector, your postcode and how far you will travel, your insurance levels, your certifications and your turnover. You can change any of it later from your dashboard. If you do not know your CPV codes, the CPV code finder helps, and the insurance requirements guide explains what buyers ask for. Our Cyber Essentials page covers the most common certification question.

See the plans for what each includes, or read the full scoring rules and limits.