Preliminary Market Engagement Notices: A Guide for Construction Firms

The Places for London Minor Works Framework notice showed 30 January 2026 as the engagement deadline. Read the description and you'd find a different instruction: return the supplier questionnaire by noon on 21 January.

If you'd put 30 January in your diary and moved on, you could have missed the date the buyer gave for submitting the questionnaire. Both dates were in the same notice. Places for London preliminary market engagement notice

That's a good example of why it's worth reading public procurement notices before a tender opens. A preliminary market engagement notice, labelled UK2 on Find a Tender under the Procurement Act 2023, can tell you what a buyer is considering, what it wants from suppliers now and where to look for the next step. The useful information is often in the description or the documents it points to. Government guidance on preliminary market engagement

What is a preliminary market engagement notice?

A preliminary market engagement notice tells suppliers that a public buyer is engaging with the market before a planned procurement. The buyer might invite you to fill in a questionnaire, attend a webinar or take part in a supplier meeting. It can use that feedback to understand what firms can deliver, test its proposed requirements and decide how to structure the procurement.

For a construction firm, that might mean explaining how a proposed lot would affect your ability to bid or flagging what information you'd need to price work in occupied buildings. The eventual tender can differ from the original proposal, and the buyer may decide against proceeding. Participation gives you a chance to contribute and prepare. The buyer must take steps to prevent unfair advantage, and the later competition follows its published documents and criteria. Government guidance on preliminary market engagement

1. Set up two searches on Find a Tender

Open Find a Tender and use the notice type filter to create one search for preliminary market engagement notices and another for tender notices. Sign in to save them and set up email alerts. The first search helps you spot buyers testing an idea. The second helps you catch competitions as they open, including those with no published engagement notice. Find a Tender guide for buyers and suppliers

Start with the regions you can serve and the descriptions buyers use for your work. A concrete repair firm might search for concrete repair and then run a wider search for structural repairs or building maintenance. A specialist trade can sit inside a broad works package without appearing in the notice title. Read the scope before ruling it out.

When a notice looks relevant, save its link, buyer name and procurement identifier (OCID). The buyer's own reference is useful too. Those details give you something more reliable to search for later than a project title that might change.

2. Check whether the work fits your business

Before asking an estimator or bid writer to spend time on it, answer four questions:

Check	What to look for
Trade fit	Which services does the buyer describe? Can you deliver the whole scope, or would you be better suited to a specialist package?
Geography and capacity	Where is the work? Can you staff it alongside your existing commitments? Check any proposed coverage or response times.
Route to the work	Is the buyer looking for firms that can contract directly? If you're a specialist subcontractor, is there a credible route through an appointed main contractor?
Effort required now	Is there a short questionnaire, an event or a more involved response? Do you have useful feedback or a question worth raising?

If the scope looks too broad for you to bid directly, keep the notice on your watchlist if the potential subcontract work fits. Use the eventual tender or award information to check what was actually let and who, if anyone, was appointed. If the opportunity is a credible fit for a direct bid, note the comparable jobs you could use as evidence once the formal requirements are published.

3. Read the instructions before you respond

The Places for London notice is a useful worked example. The buyer was exploring a framework for construction minor works and wanted feedback on the market's interest, capacity and ability to deliver. It directed suppliers to the Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme (RISQS) for the memorandum and questionnaire. That was the route specified for this exercise. Places for London preliminary market engagement notice

There are two details I'd have put in the tracker:

• Questionnaire: The description requested returns by noon on 21 January 2026, while the engagement field showed 30 January. On a live notice, I'd check for amendments, ask the buyer to confirm through the published route and work towards the earlier date in the meantime.
• Formal tender: The notice gave 25 February 2026 as the planned publication date. That's a reminder to check for the next notice. The engagement notice alone doesn't establish whether the tender subsequently opened on that date.

This is a historical example. The January response dates have passed. Places for London preliminary market engagement notice

4. Give the buyer something it can use

Answer the questions the buyer has asked. If you're raising a concern, explain how it affects delivery and what would help bidders give a reliable response. Ground your feedback in work you've actually carried out.

For example, if a buyer is testing the scope of a repairs lot covering occupied public buildings, a contractor could write:

We can programme localised concrete repairs around occupied areas. Our price and lead time depend on whether the buyer can provide survey findings and agree access windows before each package is priced. Could the proposed call-off process include a site information pack covering known defects, access restrictions and working hours?

That's an illustrative response, separate from the Places for London questionnaire. It gives the buyer a specific issue to consider and explains why it matters. If you're attending a supplier event, the same structure works for a question: what you've seen on similar jobs, where the proposed approach could create a problem and what information would help.

Use the route named in the notice for feedback and procurement questions. If you discover the opportunity through LinkedIn, follow the published instructions once you have the notice.

5. Track the procurement until the tender opens

Record the buyer, reference or OCID, your likely lot or package, the engagement deadline, the indicative tender date and who in your team is responsible for checking. Set a reminder around the proposed date and keep your tender alert active.

When the tender appears, compare it with your original notes. Check the final scope, lots, deadlines, conditions of participation and submission route before committing bid time. If a subcontract route looks more realistic, follow the award and check the appointed contractors' published supplier routes when available.

Use our UK Construction Framework Calendar to identify frameworks worth following. Once you've found one you can realistically bid for, our guide to preparing for a construction framework application covers what to do with the formal documents.