Tender

A tender is the priced offer to carry out defined works on stated terms, submitted in response to an invitation — the document that converts a design into a commercial commitment.

Tendering is the market speaking. Two-stage tendering trades first-stage openness for second-stage certainty; single-stage compresses the dialogue into one price. Frameworks and PCSAs soften the cliff-edge of priced competition; negotiated routes abandon it deliberately. Each route prices a different risk appetite, and choosing it is a procurement strategy, not an administrative one.

For the tendering contractor, the discipline is pricing the real risk — the site, the programme, the market for the specialist packages — while knowing competitors may be pricing the hope. For the employer, the commercial question after opening the bids is what the lowest number actually bought.

Related: pcsa · cost plan · value engineering