Official UK procurement notice
Cost Intelligence Software · UK public procurement notice
Authority: NATIONAL GRID UK LIMITED (Public body)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionNational Grid is seeking the provision of a groupwide Cost Intelligence digital solution.
National Grid Group is planning to invest around £70 billion over the next five years to scale and strengthen its existing network, ensuring it can meet the needs of customers now and in the future.
To support this, National Grid is seeking to establish a new groupwide cost intelligence capability that enables better access to supplier, project and market cost data across the business.
A digital solution is required as part of this capability. The solution will focus on Supplier and Market Intelligence and is intended to provide estimating, procurement, commercial and finance users with access to comparable supplier cost data, project final account data and relevant market-based insight.
The solution is expected to bring together supplier bid return data, project final account data and relevant market indices into a single digital tool environment. It should enable users to search, query, analyse and compare cost data across relevant dimensions, including asset archetypes, Cost Breakdown Structure items, activities, regions, suppliers and unit rates, where the underlying data structure allows.
National Grid requires a user-centred digital capability that provides self-service dashboards, search, analytics and reporting tailored to different user groups. The solution may include AI-enabled analytics, natural language search or conversational query functionality to help users interrogate cost data, generate different types of benchmark insight and surface relevant intelligence more quickly.
The solution will leverage a National Grid data lake or other approved data environment, with National Grid retaining ownership and control of its data. The solution should connect to, ingest from or consume data from approved customer data sources, including data lakes, data warehouses, lakehouses, APIs, enterprise systems, structured files or equivalent sources.
National Grid is seeking a flexible and scalable solution that can evolve over time as data quality, user adoption and business requirements mature. The solution should support stronger cross-Business Unit comparability, more consistent supplier cost benchmarking, improved estimating confidence and more informed engagement with delivery partners and the wider supply chain.
The solution may be delivered through an existing SaaS product, configurable platform, managed digital product, bespoke software build. National Grid is not seeking an advisory-only consultancy service.
- How the procedure runs: Steps will be undertaken in the following order; Stage A - Pre-qualification. Including an assessment of scored and Pass /Fail questions. To be considered for shortlisting, suppliers must successfully pass all pass/fail technical and financial capability questions detailed in the Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ) All compliant, passing submissions will then be scored against the objective selection criteria set out in the PSQ. National Grid will select the top 5 highest-scoring suppliers for Request for Proposal Stage B: Request for Proposal (RFP) 1. Release of the RFP on SAP Ariba. 2. Desktop evaluation of RFP written responses for all criteria; quality, commercial and due diligence fulfilment. 3. National Grid intends to limit the number of suppliers invited to presentation and system demonstration stage to a maximum of 3 suppliers. Suppliers that are not part of the selected three shall be relegated and notified. 4. Following presentations and system demonstrations, suppliers will be ranked from the highest to the lowest in accordance with the objective selection criteria to be set out in the RFP Documents 5. In the event of a tie for the final shortlisted place, the tie-break methodology detailed in the RFP will be applied. 6. National Grid reserves the right to conduct negotiations with at least one or more suppliers, from the top 3 selected. 7. Any negotiation will be intended to seek to, agreement of contractual terms and acceptance of the commercial offer. 8. National Grid may seek BAFO's. BAFO's affect commercial scores only. 9. The scope should not change during negotiations. 10. The Contract Award Criteria will remain fixed during the negotiation period and will not change. 11. Following agreement of contractual Terms & Conditions including the commercial offer; ideally, the successful Tenderer should be confirmed, and award will be placed with the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT). An estimated timeline is provided in the PSQ.
CPV: IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support · Software package and information systems
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · value publishedLot #1RenewalPublished value£2,077,200
- Economic & financial standing
The Prequalification Specific Questionnaire outlines the legal and financial capacity conditions of participation. It is available in SAP Ariba for all suppliers that have already expressed an interest and it will become available to suppliers who now express an interest.
- Technical & professional ability
The Technical ability conditions of participation are set out in the Prequalification Specific Questionnaire.
- Condition of participationshortlisting
Technical capability
Financial and legal standing
Agreement with NDA
Security posture
What it takes to wini
How this buyer will score bids.
The evaluation criteria and weights exactly as published on the notice, grouped by family (price, quality, social value and so on).
Evaluation split and conditions of participation as published; the tender pack may add morei
How this buyer will score bids.
The evaluation criteria and weights exactly as published on the notice, grouped by family (price, quality, social value and so on).
Published sub-criteria (2)
- Technical: 80%
- Commerical: 20%
Published award criteria (2)
- Technical: Technical capability
- Commerical: Pricing
- Economic & financial standing
The Prequalification Specific Questionnaire outlines the legal and financial capacity conditions of participation. It is available in SAP Ariba for all suppliers that have already expressed an interest and it will become available to suppliers who now express an interest.
- Technical & professional ability
The Technical ability conditions of participation are set out in the Prequalification Specific Questionnaire.
- Condition of participationshortlisting
Technical capability
Financial and legal standing
Agreement with NDA
Security posture
- Price carries 20 of 100 points: a 10% discount moves about 2 points. The method statement decides this lot, not the discount.
Price arithmetic assumes straight proportional scoring; the tender pack may use another formula.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Competitive flexible procedure
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Goods
- Notice status
- Closed
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Utilities
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 8 Jun 2026, 06:44 BST
- Last source update
- 6 Jul 2026, 22:52 BST
- Award evaluation window
- Submission end – 24 Nov 2026
- Authority reference
SAP Ariba reference: WS5763820474- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-063392- Latest notice
- Tender notice (UK4)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06af41Find a Tender- Contract terms summary
National Grid prefers 42 days payment terms
- How it runs
Steps will be undertaken in the following order;
Stage A - Pre-qualification.
Including an assessment of scored and Pass /Fail questions.
To be considered for shortlisting, suppliers must successfully pass all pass/fail technical and financial capability questions detailed in the Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ)
All compliant, passing submissions will then be scored against the objective selection criteria set out in the PSQ.
National Grid will select the top 5 highest-scoring suppliers for Request for Proposal
Stage B: Request for Proposal (RFP)
- Release of the RFP on SAP Ariba.
- Desktop evaluation of RFP written responses for all criteria; quality, commercial and due diligence fulfilment.
- National Grid intends to limit the number of suppliers invited to presentation and system demonstration stage to a maximum of 3 suppliers. Suppliers that are not part of the selected three shall be relegated and notified.
- Following presentations and system demonstrations, suppliers will be ranked from the highest to the lowest in accordance with the objective selection criteria to be set out in the RFP Documents
- In the event of a tie for the final shortlisted place, the tie-break methodology detailed in the RFP will be applied.
- National Grid reserves the right to conduct negotiations with at least one or more suppliers, from the top 3 selected.
- Any negotiation will be intended to seek to, agreement of contractual terms and acceptance of the commercial offer.
- National Grid may seek BAFO's. BAFO's affect commercial scores only.
- The scope should not change during negotiations.
- The Contract Award Criteria will remain fixed during the negotiation period and will not change.
- Following agreement of contractual Terms & Conditions including the commercial offer; ideally, the successful Tenderer should be confirmed, and award will be placed with the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT).
An estimated timeline is provided in the PSQ.
How it was run
Official notice- Requests to participate (first stage)
- 30 Jul 2026, 23:59 BST
- Submission deadline
- 7 Aug 2026, 23:59 BST
- Clarification deadline
- 24 Jul 2026, 23:59 BST
- Electronic submission
- Allowed
- Accepted languages
- en
Interested suppliers will be invited to the competition via SAP Ariba.
Timeline
8 Jun 2026 → 24 Nov 2026 · 8 dates- Planning notice published135 days ago8 Jun 2026, 06:44 BST
- Tender notice published107 days ago6 Jul 2026, 22:52 BST
- Next notice expected100 days ago13 Jul 2026, 23:59 BST
- Clarification questions by89 days ago24 Jul 2026, 23:59 BST
- Expressions of interest by83 days ago30 Jul 2026, 23:59 BST
- Submission deadline75 days ago7 Aug 2026, 23:59 BST
- Today21 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 34 days24 Nov 2026
- Award decision expected byin 35 days24 Nov 2026, 23:59 GMT
Notice history
5 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 8 Jun 2026- Planned procurement notice published8 Jun 2026, 06:44 BSTUK3
- Tender notice published6 Jul 2026, 22:52 BSTUK4
- Published value published: £2,077,2006 Jul 2026, 22:52 BST
- Status changed to active6 Jul 2026, 22:52 BST
- Procurement method changed6 Jul 2026, 22:52 BST
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (6)
Official links; attachments are not copiedTender pack and attachments
- Bidding documents and specifications SAP Ariba onboarding form.
- Bidding documents and specifications Estimated timeline.
- Bidding documents and specifications EOI and Ariba registration must be returned to [email protected]
- Bidding documents and specifications The minimum technical system capabilities that are required for fulfilment of this service.
Notices published for this procedure
- Tender notice Tender notice on Find a Tender
- Planned procurement notice Planned procurement notice on Find a Tender