Official UK procurement notice
RFI: Digital Technologies for Contact Tracing, Infection Surveillance & Response
Authority: Secretary of State for Health and Social Care acting as part of the Crown through UK Health Security Agency (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionThe UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is seeking to understand the market's ability to deliver digital technologies that support public health intervention activities such as, but not limited to, surveillance, infection identification, the management of cases, contacts and exposures during a health emergency.
The objective of this Request for Information (RFI) is to inform future preparedness planning and ensure the UK has access to scalable, effective and deployable digital capabilities that can help reduce transmission, improve situational awareness and support public health interventions during a pandemic or other infectious disease emergency.
The key dates for this RFI are as follows:
RFI Published: 18th September 2026
RFI Response Deadline: 2nd October 2026
Specifically, UKHSA wishes to:
I. Understand the current and emerging marketplace for digital technologies that could be deployed during a future pandemic or infectious disease incident to support the prevention, identification, monitoring and management of infection
transmission among the population, across a range of pathogens and settings.
II. Understand the intended purpose, use cases and operational objectives of technologies currently available or under development, including solutions not specifically designed for pandemic response but which may have utility in
supporting infection control measures, population monitoring, exposure identification or public communications during a health emergency.
III. Assess the effectiveness, maturity and performance characteristics of different intervention, surveillance and outbreak-management technologies, including evidence of impact, operational limitations and suitability for deployment across
diverse settings such as communities, healthcare facilities, care homes, schools and other educational establishments, custodial environments, travel and transportation hubs, and workplaces.
IV. Understand the costs associated with the implementation, operation and maintenance of technologies across different deployment scenarios, including infrastructure, licensing, support, integration and user adoption requirements, to inform assessments of affordability and value for money.
V. Understand suppliers' manufacturing, delivery and operational capacity (inclusive of lead times), including their ability to rapidly scale deployment during a national emergency, and identify key dependencies, risks, constraints and mitigation approaches that may affect resilience of supply.
VI. Assess industry capability to develop, adapt or configure bespoke digital solutions that support activities such as case management, contact tracing, exposure notification, outbreak investigation, provision of personalised advice,
and wider population engagement, including the ability to provide interoperable data flows into UKHSA systems in near real time while meeting relevant legal, data protection, security and governance requirements.
VII. Refine UKHSA's understanding of requirements by identifying innovative approaches, emerging technologies and alternative delivery models that may improve public health outcomes, operational effectiveness, user experience and scalability for Pandemic and other large scale public health incidents.
VIII. Inform UKHSA's future commercial strategy and route-to-market approach, ensuring procurement requirements are proportionate, deliver value for money, maximise competition and innovation, and support the acquisition of capabilities that are fit for purpose during health emergencies.
Should you wish to respond to this Request for Information or require more information, please follow the link below:
CPV: Software package and information systems · Software programming and consultancy services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Secretary of State for Health and Social Care acting as part of the Crown through UK Health Security Agency buys Software programming and consultancy services (CPV 7220), and who usually turns up
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care acting as part of the Crown through UK Health Security Agency’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: Software programming and consultancy services (CPV 7220) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
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.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
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.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
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.
Half of these awards have an award date within 41 days of the bid deadline.
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.
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.
1 bid47% / 20%
2–336% / 13%
4–68% / 20%
7+8% / 47%
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.
Below estimate29% / 40%
Within ±2%71% / 30%
Above estimate0% / 30%
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.
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 7220No real estimate
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 15 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid20%
2–313%
4–620%
7+47%
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.
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.
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.
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- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- 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
- 18 Sept 2026, 15:07 BST
- Last source update
- 1 Oct 2026, 16:01 BST
- Authority reference
C471985- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-092994- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-0775a3Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
18 Sept 2026 → 1 Dec 2026 · 4 dates- Planning notice published38 days ago18 Sept 2026, 15:07 BST
- Latest notice published25 days ago1 Oct 2026, 16:01 BST
- Market engagement10 days ago16 Oct 2026, 23:59 BST
Request for information
- Today26 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 35 days1 Dec 2026
Notice history
3 events · 3 releases on Find a Tender · since 18 Sept 2026- Preliminary market engagement notice published18 Sept 2026, 15:07 BSTUK2
- Preliminary market engagement notice published22 Sept 2026, 12:16 BSTUK2
- Preliminary market engagement notice published1 Oct 2026, 16:01 BSTUK2
Published amendments (2)
Change to the description of the notice
The end date has been amended to reflect the extension of the RFI submission deadline.
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
Official documents & specifications (3)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender