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Find a TenderPlanned procurementPreliminary market engagement notice
Published 29 Sept 2026, 13:57 BST

Official UK procurement notice

National Apprenticeship Awards Sponsorship Services

Official notice Competition analysis

Authority: Department for Work & Pensions (Central government)

ServicesOpen procedureAbove thresholdSME suitableAccelerated
Sectors: Business Services & Consultancy (79) Delivery: Delivery location not published
Planned pipeline value£375,000pipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected 9 Nov 2026from the planned procurement notice
Contract term 3 yrsends 31 Dec 2029 · up to 31 Dec 2031 with extensions · starts 1 Jan 2027

What is being bought

Published requirement description

The Department for Work and Pensions is undertaking market engagement in relation to a proposed Open Procurement for sponsorship services supporting the National Apprenticeship Awards.

Suppliers are invited to participate in a market engagement event planned for 16 October 2026, where DWP will explain the requirement in more detail and invite comments from potential bidders. The event will be held on Friday 16th October at 10.30am and will be delivered via MS Teams.

Interested suppliers wishing to participate in the market engagement event should register their interest by emailing naa.sponsorshipitt@DWP.GOV.UK no later than 09:00 on 16th October 2026. Please include the names and email addresses of all those from your organisation who wish to attend.

Following registration, suppliers will receive joining instructions for the online event.

Presentation materials and a summary of questions and answers arising from the event will be made available to all interested suppliers to support transparency and equal treatment. These will be available via DWP's e-procurement system Atamis.

CPV: Event services

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · value published
Lot #1PlannedRenewal 3 yrsSMEPublished value£375,000
Contract period: 1 Jan 2027 – 31 Dec 2029 (3 yrs) · up to 31 Dec 2031 with extensionsValue: £375,000 exc. VAT · £450,000 inc. VAT
Eligibility: SME eligible
Extensions: 2 optional extensions of up to 12 months each · 2 optional extensions of up to 12 months each, at the Authority's sole discretion
79952000 Event services

Who is likely to bid for this lot ↓

Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published

How Department for Work & Pensions buys Exhibition, fair and congress organisation services (CPV 7995), and who usually turns up

Department for Work & Pensions’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Exhibition, fair and congress organisation services (CPV 7995) →

1

How the contest usually goes

Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.

Question for the bid
This buyerDepartment for Work & Pensions · division 79
The marketExhibition, fair and congress organisation services (CPV 7995) · Greater London (authority’s region)
What to do with it
How often do SMEs win?
i

How often small and medium firms win.

Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.

The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 2 of 19 known-size awards · market: CPV 7995 · Greater London (authority’s region), n=71
11%59%

Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.

How often do local suppliers win?
i

How often local firms win similar work.

Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.

Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in Greater London (authority’s region).

A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: no winner locations published · market: CPV 7995 · Greater London (authority’s region), n=30
—57%

No winner locations published for this authority. Local means a registered address in the region where that award was delivered.

How long to a decision?
i

How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.

Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.

Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: no decision dates published · market: CPV 7995 · Greater London (authority’s region), n=6
—83 days

Half of these awards have an award date within 83 days of the bid deadline.

How often single-bid or direct?
i

How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.

Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.

Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.

Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: at least 15 of 26 procurements with awards had no recorded rival · market: CPV 7995 · Greater London (authority’s region), n=111
58%60%

Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.

How many bids did past lots attract?

i

How many bids past lots received.

Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.

Past bids do not predict this tender.

Last 36 months.

This buyer14 lots with bid counts · all categories
14% had one bid
The market10 lots with bid counts · CPV 7995 · Greater London (authority’s region)
20% had one bid
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
1 bid14% / 20%
Buyer: 2 of 14 lots with published bid counts. Market: 2 of 10 lots with published bid counts.
2–343% / 30%
Buyer: 6 of 14 lots with published bid counts. Market: 3 of 10 lots with published bid counts.
4–621% / 40%
Buyer: 3 of 14 lots with published bid counts. Market: 4 of 10 lots with published bid counts.
7+21% / 10%
Buyer: 3 of 14 lots with published bid counts. Market: 1 of 10 lots with published bid counts.

How did awards compare with estimates?

i

Where winning prices landed against estimates.

Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.

Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.

Last 36 months.

This buyer8 lots with estimate and award · all categories
63% below estimate
The market9 lots with estimate and award · CPV 7995 · Greater London (authority’s region)
33% below estimate
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
Below estimate63% / 33%
Buyer: 5 of 8 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 3 of 9 lots with an estimate and award.
Within ±2%38% / 67%
Buyer: 3 of 8 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 6 of 9 lots with an estimate and award.
Above estimate0% / 0%
Buyer: 0 of 8 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 0 of 9 lots with an estimate and award.
2

Assess each lot
i

What past awards tell you about each lot.

See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.

No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.

Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list

Lot #1CPV 799536 monthsSME suitablePublished estimate£375k
Expected competition
i

How many bids this lot may attract.

The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.

Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 10 past lots.

A forecast, not a list of bidders.

—No model forecast yet20% chance of a single bid
Past bids on 10 similar lots
1 bid20%
2 of 10 similar past lots received 1 bid (20%).
2–330%
3 of 10 similar past lots received 2–3 (30%).
4–640%
4 of 10 similar past lots received 4–6 (40%).
7+10%
1 of 10 similar past lots received 7+ (10%).
Comparable past lots usually drew 3.5 bids.
Commercial price forecast
i

Where the award price may land.

The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.

No comparable awards for this lot yet.

A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.

—No model forecast yet
No comparable awards on record for this lot’s category yet. The published estimate is £375k, and the forecast stays empty until the market has a record to read.

Who has supplied this buyer on similar work?
i

Who has done similar work for this buyer.

Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.

A past supplier may not bid again.

No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.

Who could compete for this lot?
i

Who could compete for this lot?

Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.

None is confirmed as a bidder.

Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.

About this data
  • Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
  • Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
  • Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
  • Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record
Procedure method
Open procedure
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Procurement category
Services
Notice status
Planned procurement
Procurement threshold
Above threshold (FTS publication)
Regulatory regime
Standard
Commercial structure
Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type
Competitive procedure
GPA / WTO covered
Unspecified in notice
Recurring procurement
Unspecified in notice
First published
29 Sept 2026, 13:57 BST
Last source update
7 Oct 2026, 17:03 BST
Award evaluation window
Submission end – 17 Dec 2026
FTS notice number
2026/S 000-094944
Accelerated
Qualifying planned procurement notice
Latest notice
Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
Classification (CPV)
Event services
Delivery area
Not published
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-077c8d Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Run through: portal not identified
Electronic submission allowedLanguage: EN
Submission deadline
23 Nov 2026, 12:00 GMT
Submission channel
Official e-sourcing portal
Electronic submission
Allowed
Accepted languages
en
Detailed submission instructions & authority contactsFrom official release

via DWP's e-procurement system Atamis dwp2.my.site.com/s/Welcome ↗ . Further details will be contained in or with the UK4 Tender Notice.

Timeline

29 Sept 2026 → 1 Jan 2027 · 7 dates
  1. Planning notice published29 days ago
    29 Sept 2026, 13:57 BST
  2. Latest notice published20 days ago
    7 Oct 2026, 17:03 BST
  3. Market engagement4 days ago
    23 Oct 2026, 23:59 BST

    The Department for Work and Pensions is undertaking market engagement in relation to a proposed Open Procurement for sponsorship services supporting the National Apprenticeship Awards.

    Suppliers are invited to participate in a market engagement event planned for 16 October 2026, where DWP will explain the requirement in more detail and invite comments from potential bidders. The event will be held on Friday 16th October at 10.30am and will be delivered via MS Teams.

    This engagement is for information gathering purposes only and does not constitute a call for competition.

  4. Today
    28 Oct 2026
  5. Tender notice expectedin 12 days
    9 Nov 2026, 23:59 GMT
  6. Submission deadlinein 25 days
    23 Nov 2026, 12:00 GMT
  7. Award decision expected byin 50 days
    17 Dec 2026, 23:59 GMT
  8. Contract startsin 64 days
    1 Jan 2027

Notice history

4 events · 4 releases on Find a Tender · since 29 Sept 2026
  1. Planned procurement notice published
    29 Sept 2026, 13:57 BST
    UK3
  2. Planned procurement notice published
    1 Oct 2026, 14:51 BST
    UK3
  3. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    7 Oct 2026, 16:59 BST
    UK2
  4. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    7 Oct 2026, 17:03 BST
    UK2
Published amendments (2)

Adding email address for supplier enquiries to replace TBC@dwp.gov.uk. Group mailbox was not previously set up when the notice was first published.

To include correct contact email address

Routine re-releases (4)
  • 2026-09: 1 release · 29 Sept 2026

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Pipeline notice
Awards (0)
No award published
Contracts (0)
No contract published
Bid statistics
No aggregate bid statistics published

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

Department for Work & Pensions

Contracting authorityPublic authority - central government GB-PPON: PJCP-7274-TLRQ Caxton House, 6-12 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NA, London, London, SW1H 9NAContact name, email

Official documents & specifications (4)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure