Every UK public sector tender is awarded against published evaluation criteria. Understanding those criteria, and the relative weightings the buyer applies, is the most important thing you can do before writing a single word of your bid response. Bids that ignore evaluation weightings rarely win, no matter how well written.
Almost every UK public sector tender uses some combination of three criteria:
Some tenders add a fourth criterion for innovation, sustainability, or partnership working, but these typically sit inside the Quality or Social Value scores rather than being scored separately. Always check the exact criteria for the tender you are bidding on, because the wording matters when you write your response.
| Sector | Quality | Price | Social Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional services / consultancy | 60 to 70% | 20 to 30% | 10% |
| Construction (works) | 40 to 60% | 30 to 50% | 10 to 20% |
| IT and digital | 50 to 70% | 20 to 40% | 10% |
| Goods and supplies | 30 to 50% | 40 to 60% | 10% |
| Facilities management | 40 to 60% | 30 to 50% | 10 to 20% |
| Social care and community services | 50 to 60% | 20 to 30% | 20 to 30% |
These bands are typical but not universal. Some buyers weight unusually heavily on social value (up to 30% for community-impact contracts) or on price (50% or more for routine commodity purchases). Read the specific evaluation criteria for every tender you bid.
The buyer publishes a set of quality questions and a scoring scale (typically 0 to 5 or 0 to 10). Each response is scored independently against the scale, then weighted within the quality envelope. A typical scale:
The difference between a 3 and a 4 is the difference between winning and losing most tenders. Aim to write at the 4 level on every quality question. The most reliable way to do this is to address each evaluation criterion explicitly, use the buyer''s language back to them, and provide a specific example for every claim of capability.
Two common methods:
Read the tender carefully because the scoring method changes everything about your pricing strategy. If lowest price wins, every pound matters and your job is to find the keenest price you can sustainably deliver. If mean baseline, bidding 30% below market is actively dangerous: it will pull the average down and may flag your bid as abnormally low, triggering a formal investigation.
Since the Social Value Act and the Crown Commercial Service "Model Award Criteria" framework, most UK public sector buyers use one of five themes:
Buyers select one to three themes most relevant to the contract and ask suppliers to propose specific, measurable commitments. Vague promises score poorly. Specific commitments with named beneficiaries, numbers, and timelines score well.
For example, "We will support local employment" scores 2. "We will create three apprenticeship positions in the Greater Manchester area within the first twelve months, working with Manchester Adult Education Service to recruit candidates from areas of multiple deprivation" scores 4 or 5.
Writing technical responses that demonstrate capability rather than fit. Evaluators do not care that you can do the work in general. They care that you can do this work for this buyer. Reference the buyer''s specific challenges, the named systems they use, the population they serve. Generic excellence loses to specific competence every time.
The second most common mistake is ignoring word limits. Most quality questions have a word cap (typically 500 to 2,000 words). Writing 50% over the limit either gets your response cut off mid-sentence or scores you down for failure to follow instructions. Treat word limits as hard limits.
Spend an hour with the evaluation criteria before you start writing. (For a walkthrough of how to identify them in the first place, see our guide to reading a UK tender notice.) Highlight every requirement, note the weighting, and plan your response around the highest-weighted criteria first. If quality is 60% of the total score and one of the quality questions is worth 25% of the quality envelope, that question alone is worth 15% of your final score. Allocate writing effort proportionally.
Also note any pass/fail criteria, which are typically embedded in the Selection Questionnaire and are mandatory minimum standards (often relating to insurance, accreditations, or specific certifications). Failing a pass/fail criterion disqualifies your bid regardless of how well you score on everything else, so check these first before investing time in the scored questions.
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Evaluation sits at Stage 6 of the UK tender lifecycle. Understanding where it fits helps you allocate effort across the whole bid timeline rather than just the writing.