For contractors with 3 to 30 staff

Councils are buying. You are not bidding.

Every week, councils, NHS trusts, schools and housing associations publish contracts for cleaning, grounds and maintenance. We find the ones you can win, and we write the bid with you.

Free first list. No obligation, no card needed.

Published this month Live from Find a Tender
Communal cleaning, three lots SME suitable
Southdown Housing Association, Sussex · £800,000 · scored 60% on quality
Grass cutting and pitch maintenance
Lancing Parish Council · £30,000 over five years · tender by email
Community centre refurbishment
Hedge End Town Council, Hampshire · £144,000 · closes 19 October
Three of 172 contracts published in one week in these trades. Most never reach the firms they were meant for.
£45.2bn

spent with small and medium firms by the UK public sector in 2025, a six year high

172

live contracts in cleaning, grounds, maintenance, catering, care, security and waste in a single week

60%

of the marks on a typical contract go to written answers, not to the lowest price

The problem

It is not the quality of your work.

You lose these contracts before anyone reads a word about you. Here is where it actually goes wrong.

01

You never see them

Since February 2025 buyers publish on the government's Central Digital Platform. If nobody checks it daily for your trade and your patch, the contract is awarded before you knew it existed.

02

The forms stop you

Selection questionnaires, method statements, social value, policies, insurance evidence. None of it is hard once it is written down properly. It just never gets written down.

03

Help is priced for someone else

Bid consultancies charge £450 to £750 a day and £2,000 to £8,000 a tender. That works for a firm with a hundred staff. It does not work for you.

How it works

One call to set up. A short email every week after that.

You stay on the tools. We do the watching, the reading and the writing.

1

We register you properly

Central Digital Platform account, supplier profile, share code. Done once, done right, so you are eligible to bid from day one.

2

We watch every portal daily

Find a Tender, Contracts Finder and your regional portal, filtered to your trade, your area and the contract sizes you can actually deliver.

3

You get one page a week

Only the contracts worth your time, each with a plain summary, the deadline, and our honest view of your chances. Nothing else.

4

We write the bid with you

Every answer drafted from your own evidence, checked line by line, formatted and submitted before the deadline. You approve it first.

Pricing

Plain prices. No contract, no percentage of your contract value.

You pay for the work, not for the win. Cancel any month.

Tender Desk

£249 / month

Rolling monthly. Cancel any time.

  • Central Digital Platform registration and profile
  • Daily monitoring of every relevant portal
  • Weekly shortlist with plain summaries
  • Deadline reminders so nothing slips
  • 15 minute review call each month
Start this month

Bid Build

£750 / bid

£1,500 for a full tender response.

  • Every question answered from your evidence
  • Method statements and social value written
  • You review before anything is sent
  • Formatted and submitted on time
  • Half on start, half on submission
Ask about a bid

Tender Ready Pack

£350 one off

Written once, reused in every bid.

  • The policies every buyer asks for
  • Insurance and accreditation summary
  • Two written case studies
  • Standard method statements
  • Social value statement
Get tender ready

Who this is for

Firms that do good work and want steadier work.

Trading at least a year, public liability insurance in place, two customers who would give a reference. If that is you, there is public work you are eligible for right now.

Commercial cleaning Grounds maintenance Building maintenance Small works and refurbishment Catering Domiciliary care Training providers Security Waste and recycling Electrical and plumbing

Straight answers

What we will and will not promise.

We are new, we are small, and we would rather tell you that than invent a track record. What follows is the whole of it.

  • We do not guarantee any bid is won. Nobody honest can.
  • We will tell you plainly when a contract is not worth your time.
  • Nothing goes in a bid that your firm cannot evidence.
  • Drafting is AI assisted and checked by a person before it is sent.
  • No contract, no notice period, no percentage of the contract value.
  • If a month is quiet, the email still comes, and it says why.

Questions

The things people ask on the first call.

Are these contracts really open to a firm my size?

Yes. Buyers mark many notices as suitable for small and medium firms, and the government has a published plan to send more work their way. Small and medium firms took £45.2 billion of public spend in 2025. The contracts we send you are filtered by value so you only see work you could deliver with the staff you have.

Why would I pay when the portals are free?

They are free, and unusable at volume. There were 456 live tender notices in one week. Sorting those to the handful that fit your trade, your area and your size takes a few hours every week, and then you still have the questionnaire to answer. That is the job you are paying for.

How much of my time does this take?

Around ten minutes a week to read the shortlist, and one short call a month. When you decide to bid, expect an hour of your time to pull together evidence and to check the draft before it goes.

What if I have never bid for public work before?

That is the normal starting point. The first job is getting you registered and tender ready, which is a one off. After that you are eligible for everything your trade covers.

Do you use AI?

Yes, for reading the notices and for first drafts. Every line is checked by a person against your own documents before anything reaches you or a buyer. That is how the price stays where it is.

How do I pay, and can I stop?

Card or direct debit, monthly. Stop whenever you like, with no notice period and no exit fee. Bids are quoted as a fixed fee, half up front.

No obligation

See what was published in your area this month.

Tell us your trade and where you work. We will send you the live contracts we found, free. If there is nothing worth your time, we will say that instead.

07534 458327

hello@thetenderdesk.co.uk

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. We reply the same working day.

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