Procurement Act 2023 for Small Construction Contractors
The short answer
Since 24 February 2025, public buyers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland follow the Procurement Act 2023. For a small builder, five things changed: you register once on Find a Tender, smaller contracts are easier to bid for, 30-day payment flows down to subcontractors, exclusion rules are stricter and you get told how your bid was scored.
- Register once on Find a Tender. Your company details, accounts and declarations sit in one profile you share with a code.
- Smaller works are open to you. On lower-value contracts the buyer can't screen you out with a suitability questionnaire before you bid.
- 30-day payment flows down. It is written into public contracts and into the subcontracts under them.
- Losing teaches you something now. Buyers must send each bidder an assessment summary of how its tender scored.
Updated October 2026. The Procurement Act 2023 has applied to new public tenders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since 24 February 2025. For a small construction contractor it changes five things. Where you register. Which small contracts you can bid for. How fast you get paid. What can exclude you. And what you learn when you lose.
This guide covers each change in plain words and gives you a 6-step plan for your next public bid. If you want help picking which public work to go for first, book a free strategy call.
What the Procurement Act 2023 is
The Act replaced the old public contract regulations with one set of rules. It covers councils, NHS bodies, schools, housing associations that are public buyers, and central government. Scotland has its own rules.
Contracts started before 24 February 2025 carry on under the old rules until they end. So for a while you will see both. Check the tender notice: it says which rules apply.
The 5 changes that matter to a small builder
Most guides to the Act are written by lawyers for buyers. These are the changes that affect a firm turning over £500K to a few million and bidding for its first public jobs.
- One supplier profile on Find a Tender. You register your company once on the government's central digital platform. Your basic details, recent accounts, people with significant control and exclusion declarations sit there. You share them with each buyer through a share code.
- Fewer hoops on smaller contracts. On below-threshold contracts the buyer can't screen you out with a suitability questionnaire before you tender. It checks suitability when it decides who wins. Larger works contracts and frameworks are the exceptions.
- 30-day payment in the supply chain. A 30-day payment term is written into public contracts and into the subcontracts under them. If you work for a main contractor on public work, that protects your cash.
- Stricter exclusions. Mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds are set out in the Act, and there is a central debarment list. You declare against them in your profile.
- Feedback you can use. Before the award notice, the buyer sends every bidder an assessment summary of how its tender was scored.
Register on Find a Tender before you need it
You only need to register when you want to bid. But doing it two days before a deadline, while you are also pricing the job, is how bids get missed. Find a Tender is free to use. Registration takes three steps.
- Create a GOV.UK One Login with a work email and a phone or authenticator app, then register your organisation as a supplier.
- Enter your supplier information: company name, address and Companies House number, VAT number, qualifications, SME status, recent accounts, connected persons and exclusion declarations.
- Declare and share. Confirm it is accurate and create a share code. You paste the code into the buyer's portal, or send the downloaded file if the buyer asks.
Leaving old details in the profile. You are responsible for the accuracy of what you share. When accounts, directors or insurance change, update the profile and create a new share code.
Use the smaller-contract rules
This is the biggest opening for a small firm. Many public jobs a small builder can deliver sit below the procurement thresholds: minor works, refurbishments, planned maintenance and small fit-outs.
Under the Act, buyers must publish notices for these contracts above a set value. That is £12,000 for central government and NHS trusts, and £30,000 for councils and other buyers, including VAT. Before inviting tenders, buyers must also consider the barriers small firms face in competing.
And on most of these contracts, the buyer can't stop you tendering because of a pre-qualification check on your finances or experience. It can still look at those things when it chooses the winner, so your case studies and accounts still matter.
To find them and meet buyers before the notice, read how to win council contracts as a small builder.
Bid to the published scoring
Contracts go to the most advantageous tender, not simply the cheapest. The buyer must publish its award criteria and how much each one weighs before you bid. Awarding on price alone is described in government guidance as unlikely to suit most contracts.
| What buyers score | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Quality questions | Answer in their order, their words, within the limit |
| Price | A price you can deliver, with your build-up kept |
| Social value | At least 10% of the total on central government contracts |
Is your price far below the others? The buyer has to tell you before it rejects the bid as abnormally low. You then get the chance to show you can deliver at that price. Keep your build-up sheet. The full method is in how to win construction tenders in the UK.
Not sure which public contracts are worth your time?
Book a free call with our team. We'll go through your trade, your area and the buyers who fit a firm your size.
Check your exclusion declarations
Your profile includes declarations against the mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds in Schedules 6 and 7 of the Act. They list the situations that can bar a supplier from public contracts. The Act also brings in a central debarment list. A supplier is told before it is added and can apply to be removed.
For most small builders the answer to every ground is "no". The risk is the one you don't know about: an old company a director was involved in, or a dispute you have half forgotten. Read each question properly and answer it accurately. If something does apply, get advice before you submit.
Know your rights as a subcontractor
Most small builders meet public work first as a subcontractor. Two parts of the Act help you there.
- 30-day payment flows down. A 30-day payment term is implied into subcontracts under public contracts. Late payment by the main contractor is now a breach of a term the law put there.
- More is published. On contracts over £5 million, buyers set and publish KPIs for the main contractor. Larger buyers publish pipeline notices of contracts over £2 million, so you can see work coming before main contractors start buying packages.
That pipeline is where your next approved-supplier list comes from. Use it with how to get subcontract work from main contractors.
Owed money on a public job?
Book a free call and we'll look at your contract, your invoices and what to send next.
Turn every lost bid into the next win
Under the old rules, many small firms lost a bid and never found out why. Now every bidder on a tender under the Act gets an assessment summary before the award notice.
Read it the day it arrives. Write down the two questions where you lost the most marks and fix those answers in your bid library before the next tender. After three or four bids, you will know your weak spots better than any guide can tell you. The common patterns are in why you keep losing tenders.
What we tell owners before their first public bid
The Act made public work easier to reach for a small firm. It did not make it easier to win. The firms that win still bid on work they have done before, at a size they can carry, with a proper price.
I paid a lot for accreditations that never brought me a single job. Get one only when a specific tender for a specific project asks for that specific accreditation. Most take 2–3 months, so start as soon as you see it in the documents. Never buy them expecting work to pour in.
BizMentor is different from a standard coaching program. You work one to one with the owner of a working London construction company. The program is built for results in about 4 months, not 1–3 years. Results are individual and not typical or guaranteed.
Ready to plan your first public bid? Book a free strategy call and we'll pick the contracts worth your time. If you would rather hand over the writing, our construction bid writing service prepares the pack and the quality answers with you. Not sure what is holding the business back? Take the free 4-minute Construction Business Scorecard.
BizMentor provides business education and mentoring for construction and trade business owners. Nothing here is legal advice. Check the tender notice and current guidance on GOV.UK before you bid, as rules and thresholds can change.
Before your next public bid
- Register your company on Find a Tender and save a share code
- Upload your latest accounts and check your connected persons
- Answer every exclusion question accurately
- Search below-threshold notices for your trade and area
- Keep your price build-up for every bid
