Official UK procurement notice
DLSITT1082 - Standard Absorbers and 1st Apertures for Diamond-II
Authority: DIAMOND LIGHT SOURCE LIMITED (Central government)
Located on the Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, Diamond Light Source (DLS) is a leading-edge facility for science, engineering and innovation. DLS allows researchers from academia and industry to investigate the structure and behaviour of the world around us at the atomic and molecular level. The assembly is situated in a restricted area and so must be capable of continuous operation over long periods without maintenance.
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionLocated on the Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, Diamond Light Source (DLS) is a leading-edge facility for science, engineering and innovation. DLS allows researchers from academia and industry to investigate the structure and behaviour of the world around us at the atomic and molecular level. To continue delivering the world-changing science that Diamond enables, the facility is being upgraded to Diamond-II, a co-ordinated programme of development that combines a major machine upgrade with new instruments and complementary improvements to optics, detectors, sample environment and delivery capabilities, and computing, as well as integrated and correlative methods. This will be transformative in speed and spatial resolution and will offer users streamlined access to enhanced instruments for life and physical sciences.
The scope of the contract is the manufacture, test and delivery of twelve Absorber Assemblies and five 1st Aperture Assemblies for Diamond-II in accordance with the specification.
The assembly is situated in a restricted area and so must be capable of continuous operation over long periods without maintenance.
See specification for further details.
CPV: Miscellaneous fabricated products and related items
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · value publishedLot #1Published value£250,000
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 (5)
- Technical Quality: 25%
- Experience & Capacity: 25%
- Delivery: 5%
- Commercial: 5%
- Price: 40%
Published award criteria (5)
- Technical Quality
- Experience & Capacity
- Commercial
- Delivery
- Price
No conditions of participation were published on the notice; check the tender documents.
- Price carries 45 of 100 points: a 10% discount moves about 4.5 points. Quality carries 55 of 100: the paper moves it further than the discount.
- Turnover usually expected at this size: about £598,361 (twice the annual value).
Price arithmetic assumes straight proportional scoring; the tender pack may use another formula. Turnover is an indicative market norm (≈2× annual value), not a published condition.
Competition analysis · published record, not a forecast of who will bid
How DIAMOND LIGHT SOURCE LIMITED buys Miscellaneous fabricated products and related items (CPV 4440), and who usually turns up
DIAMOND LIGHT SOURCE LIMITED’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Miscellaneous fabricated products and related items (CPV 4440) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 36 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
The buyer’s share is a minimum: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Missing bid counts may hide more single-bid awards. This share is a minimum.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid16% / 0%
2–351% / 0%
4–622% / 40%
7+10% / 60%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate62% / 50%
Within ±2%0% / 23%
Above estimate38% / 27%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 4440Published estimate£250k
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 37 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid11%
2–335%
4–627%
7+27%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender and Contracts Finder), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly. Contracts Finder appears in live search, the Retender Radar, contract pages, organisation counts and the buyer's decision figure; the other analytical figures are built from Find a Tender notices.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Open procedure
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Goods
- Notice status
- Open for tender
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Yes (GPA)
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 9 Nov 2026, 14:42 GMT
- Last source update
- 9 Nov 2026, 14:42 GMT
- Award evaluation window
- Submission end – 5 Jan 2027
- Authority reference
DLSITT1082- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-106295- Latest notice
- Tender notice (UK4)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-07b7baFind a Tender
How to participate & submission route
Official notice Submit via portal- Requests to participate (first stage)
- —
- Tender submission deadline
- 9 Dec 2026, 12:00 GMT
- Clarification deadline
- —
- Submission channel
- Official e-sourcing portal
- Electronic submission
- Allowed
- Accepted languages
- en
Please email tender submission to:
and send a hard copy to:
Diamond Procurement
Diamond House
Diamond Light Source Ltd
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Didcot
Oxon
OX11 0DE
UK
Timeline
9 Nov 2026 → 15 Jan 2027 · 4 dates- Tender notice published1h ago9 Nov 2026, 14:42 GMT
- Today9 Nov 2026
- Submission deadlinein 29 days9 Dec 2026, 12:00 GMT
- Award decision expected byin 57 days5 Jan 2027, 23:59 GMT
- Contract startsin 66 days15 Jan 2027
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Tender notice published9 Nov 2026, 14:42 GMTUK4
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Nothing awarded yet- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedTender pack and attachments
- Technical specifications Visit our web page: https://tenders.diamond.ac.uk Here Suppliers are required to complete a one-off simple registration form. You are then able to login to register an interest against the tender and download the Tender Documents.
Notices published for this procedure
- Tender notice Tender notice on Find a Tender