IT & digital tenders: G-Cloud, software & cyber work

Not for everything, but it helps. G-Cloud is the main route for cloud hosting, software and cloud support, and many buyers award directly from it after searching the Digital Marketplace. Bespoke development, larger projects and some support work are tendered outside G-Cloud, so the right answer depends on what you sell.

Larger council contracts appear on Find a Tender and the other national portals, but a lot of low-value digital work is run as quick quotes through portals like ProContract and never reaches the headline feeds. Monitoring those portals as well as the main sources is the only way to see the full picture, which is the gap BidSquirrel is built to cover.

It varies, but Cyber Essentials is very common and Cyber Essentials Plus, ISO 27001 and sometimes security clearances are required for work touching sensitive data. These are usually hard pass/fail criteria, so check them before you start writing. BidSquirrel flags the certifications each tender requires up front.

Digital Outcomes and Specialists is the framework route for buying agile delivery teams, discoveries, builds and individual specialists rather than off-the-shelf products. Buyers publish a requirement, shortlist on your evidence against their criteria, and usually ask the shortlist for a written proposal or assessment, and sometimes an interview. You win by answering the specific outcome they described with named, comparable work and a credible delivery approach, not a capabilities brochure. BidSquirrel flags which route each opportunity uses and drafts each answer from your Evidence Vault to the criterion it will be scored on.

Digital contracts are awarded on the most advantageous tender under section 19 of the Procurement Act 2023: quality is scored against a published methodology, and panels reward evidence over adjectives. The quality questions typically want a credible, phased delivery approach with risks named, accessibility built to WCAG 2.2 AA, named case studies with measurable outcomes, and a solution that answers the specific problem in the notice. Price matters but rarely decides a well-run digital evaluation on its own. BidSquirrel drafts each answer to the criterion it will be marked against and strips anything your evidence does not support.

Public cyber security work - penetration testing, security operations, assurance and remediation - almost always front-loads hard gates: Cyber Essentials Plus, ISO 27001, and often recognised tester or scheme credentials and security clearances for sensitive systems. Past the gate, buyers score your methodology, your people's certifications and named comparable engagements with outcomes. Missing one mandatory credential voids an otherwise strong bid, so BidSquirrel checks them against the notice before you write and drafts each answer from your own evidence.

The NHS buys a large amount of digital work - clinical systems, integration, data, cyber and citizen-facing services - through Find a Tender, NHS Shared Business Services frameworks and G-Cloud. NHS tenders often carry their own standards, such as the Data Security and Protection Toolkit and clinical-safety or interoperability requirements, on top of the usual Cyber Essentials and ISO gates, and evidence of comparable NHS or regulated-sector delivery counts for a lot. BidSquirrel surfaces NHS digital opportunities across every route and checks each one's requirements against your firm before you commit.

Digital bids live or die on technical evidence - named case studies, measurable outcomes, your delivery approach and accessibility - which an outside writer cannot invent. BidSquirrel builds the full draft with you from your Evidence Vault: it drafts each answer to the published criteria, scores its own draft the way a panel would, refines the weak sections and strips anything your evidence does not support, then hands it back with the facts for you to confirm and own. Usually cheaper and stronger than outsourcing the whole bid.