Frequently asked questions

A tender is a formal invitation from a public body (a council, NHS trust, government department, university and so on) for suppliers to bid to provide goods, works or services. Above certain thresholds, these must be advertised publicly under the Procurement Act 2023.

Every UK public sector tender across all four nations, plus EU opportunities, brought into one searchable, de-duplicated feed and updated daily.

The Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025 and is the biggest reform of UK public procurement in a generation. It introduced a single central platform and new notice types, including pipeline, preliminary market engagement and planned procurement notices that appear before a tender is advertised.

OCDS (the Open Contracting Data Standard) is the open data format used to publish UK public procurement notices. FastTender works directly with this standardised data so your feed is accurate and up to date.

We read each opportunity and score it against your company profile, SIC codes and past performance, producing a fit score and a clear pursue, watch or pass recommendation, with the reasoning behind it, so you focus on the tenders you can actually win.

Yes, there's a free plan with AI-scored matches, full tender search and pipeline tracking, with no credit card required. Paid plans add unlimited matches, full AI analysis and a bid workspace.

Yes. You can browse and search every UK and EU tender on our public tenders pages without an account. Signing up adds AI suitability scoring tailored to your company.