Find a TenderPlanned procurementPreliminary market engagement notice
Published 18 Sept 2026, 15:07 BST

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)

Services
Planned pipeline value£1pipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected Date not publishedfrom the planned procurement notice
Contract term 4 moends 31 Mar 2027 · starts 1 Dec 2026

What is being bought

Published requirement description

The 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:

atamis-1928--prospend.vf.force.com/apex/CS_ContractPage ↗

CPV: Software package and information systems · Software programming and consultancy services

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published

Pipeline 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) →

1

How the contest usually goes

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

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: 4 of 17 known-size awards · market: CPV 7220 · UK-wide, n=80
24%31%

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.

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

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 0 of 1 known-location awards · market: CPV 7220 · UK-wide, n=80
0 of 125%

Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside 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 7220 · UK-wide, n=12
—41 days

Half of these awards have an award date within 41 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 22 of 32 procurements with awards had no recorded rival · market: CPV 7220 · UK-wide, n=156
69%74%

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 buyer36 lots with bid counts · all categories
47% had one bid
The market15 lots with bid counts · CPV 7220 · UK-wide
20% had one bid
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
1 bid47% / 20%
Buyer: 17 of 36 lots with published bid counts. Market: 3 of 15 lots with published bid counts.
2–336% / 13%
Buyer: 13 of 36 lots with published bid counts. Market: 2 of 15 lots with published bid counts.
4–68% / 20%
Buyer: 3 of 36 lots with published bid counts. Market: 3 of 15 lots with published bid counts.
7+8% / 47%
Buyer: 3 of 36 lots with published bid counts. Market: 7 of 15 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 buyer7 lots with estimate and award · all categories
29% below estimate
The market10 lots with estimate and award · CPV 7220 · UK-wide
40% below estimate
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
Below estimate29% / 40%
Buyer: 2 of 7 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 4 of 10 lots with an estimate and award.
Within ±2%71% / 30%
Buyer: 5 of 7 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 3 of 10 lots with an estimate and award.
Above estimate0% / 30%
Buyer: 0 of 7 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 3 of 10 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 72204 monthsNo real estimate
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 15 past lots.

A forecast, not a list of bidders.

—No model forecast yet20% chance of a single bid
Past bids on 15 similar lots
1 bid20%
3 of 15 similar past lots received 1 bid (20%).
2–313%
2 of 15 similar past lots received 2–3 (13%).
4–620%
3 of 15 similar past lots received 4–6 (20%).
7+47%
7 of 15 similar past lots received 7+ (47%).
Comparable past lots usually drew 6 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 real estimate
The buyer published £1 as the estimate (a placeholder, not the contract’s value), so there is nothing to forecast against.

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
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)
Software package and information systemsSoftware programming and consultancy services
Delivery area
UK
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-0775a3 Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

18 Sept 2026 → 1 Dec 2026 · 4 dates
  1. Planning notice published38 days ago
    18 Sept 2026, 15:07 BST
  2. Latest notice published25 days ago
    1 Oct 2026, 16:01 BST
  3. Market engagement10 days ago
    16 Oct 2026, 23:59 BST

    Request for information

  4. Today
    26 Oct 2026
  5. Contract startsin 35 days
    1 Dec 2026

Notice history

3 events · 3 releases on Find a Tender · since 18 Sept 2026
  1. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    18 Sept 2026, 15:07 BST
    UK2
  2. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    22 Sept 2026, 12:16 BST
    UK2
  3. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    1 Oct 2026, 16:01 BST
    UK2
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

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care acting as part of the Crown through UK Health Security Agency

Contracting authorityPublic authority - central government GB-PPON: PBMQ-7576-DVGW 10 South Colonnade, London, London, E14 4PUContact name, email

Official documents & specifications (3)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure