Find a TenderPlanned procurementPreliminary market engagement notice
Published 1 May 2026, 14:09 BST

Official UK procurement notice

Scheduling and Metering Software

Authority: United Utilities Water Limited (Public body)

GoodsUtilities
Planned pipeline valueValue not publishedpipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected Date not publishedfrom the planned procurement notice
Contract term Ends 22 May 2026starts 11 May 2026

What is being bought

Published requirement description

United Utilities (UU) is undertaking a review of its billing platform and future scope requirements. The purpose of this PME is to understand the capability and capacity of the scheduling and metering tools in the market in order to inform any future billing platform procurement strategy. Interested parties will be required to complete an NDA and attend a supplier session.

The objectives and requirements of scheduling and metering are outlined as below.

Objectives

  1. Consolidate field operations into a single platform

Reduce fragmented tools and manual processes with one system managing all FMO, proactive and reactive jobs, from booking through to close.

  1. Improve appointment efficiency

Reduce failed visits and wasted field resource through better pre-appointment information, skill-matched scheduling and real-time engineer comms.

  1. Create end-to-end visibility across the meter lifecycle

Give operations, field teams and management a real-time view of jobs status, asset health and SLA performance - with automated workflows to support jeopardy scenarios.

  1. Automate/ Improve payment and performance management

Reduce manual effort from third-party payment validation and processing by generating accurate, evidence-backed payment information.

Current metrics for appointments and installations:

  1. Service Appointments, circa 1 million per year
  2. Cancelled Appointment circa 170,000 per year
  3. New Meter installations circa 215,000 per year
  4. Cases Completed circa 500,000 per year

Key Requirements

M001 Planning & Scheduling

The ability to book, manage, and dispatch planned and reactive jobs across multiple appointment types (Eg installations, exchanges, meter reads, audits), with appointment optimisation performed against defined parameters. Including ability for customer to self-serve.

M002 Appointment Management

The capability to manage the complete appointment life cycle, from scheduling through completion, including proactive in day jeopardy identification and management. Including ability for customer to self-serve.

M003 Field Workforce Management

The ability to manage engineer availability, skills and real-time job status - including two-way comms with the handheld device in the field for multiple work types (Eg operative reinstatement and supervision).

M004 Asset & Meter Lifecycle

The ability to track a meter from installation through to decommission, including all activity, reads and changes against the asset record and the ability to manage asset health.

M005 Data & Billing Accuracy

The ability to ingest, validate and output meter read accuracy to support billing - and water demand initiatives.

M006 Third Party Management

The ability to manage contracted third parties within a single platform, with enforced data segregation and validated outpayments (E.g. automated reconciliation and exception management).

M007 Integrations & Automation

The ability to integrate with external systems (e.g. Billing, Street Works, video and photograph capture, handheld devices) and automatically automate scheduling, alerts and workflows based on configurable rules.

M008 Customer Management

The ability to manage customer cases, including complaints, enquiries, and operational issues, from initiation to resolution.

Data Location and Processing Restrictions

Interested Supplier should note: the mandatory requirement, that all personal data processed under this Contract is hosted, stored, accessed, and otherwise processed solely within the United Kingdom. No personal data shall be transferred, accessed, or processed outside the UK.

The Supplier shall implement and maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure compliance with this requirement and shall provide evidence of such measures upon request by the Company.

Next Steps

  1. United Utilities will set up Meet the Supplier sessions. These will be held over 2 weeks, week commencing 11th May 2026 and 18th May 2026.
  2. Prior to invitation to a Supplier session, all interested parties will be required to complete an NDA.
  3. Upon receipt and acceptance of the NDA, supplier sessions will then be made available. These will be scheduled over a period of 2 weeks commencing 11th May 2026.

CPV: Scheduling software package

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published
Lot #1Planned

Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published

How United Utilities Water Limited buys Scheduling and productivity software package (CPV 4833), and who usually turns up

United Utilities Water Limited’s own published record, next to the published market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are kept out: they attract a different number of bids. Whole-market view: Scheduling and productivity software package (CPV 4833) →

1

How the contest usually goes

Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.

Question for the bid
This buyerUnited Utilities Water Limited · division 48
What to do with it
How often do SMEs win?
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.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 0 of 5 known-size awards · market: CPV 4833 · UK-wide, n=18
0%28%

No small-firm winners recorded among this authority’s published awards in this sample.

How often do local suppliers win?
i

How often local firms win similar work.

Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.

Here, local means the winner is registered in the region where that contract was delivered.

A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 4 of 9 known-location awards · market: CPV 4833 · UK-wide, n=8
44%38%

Most of this buyer’s recorded winners are registered outside North West England.

How long to a decision?
i

How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.

Middle value in days from the deadline to the first award notice, on competitions that published both dates.

Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 13 decided notices · market: division 48 · North West England, n=43
89 days56 days

Half of these awards were announced within 89 days of the bid deadline.

How often single-bid or direct?
i

How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.

Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.

The market share is a minimum: some awards have no bid count.

Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: exactly 12 of 12 procurements with awards had no recorded rival · market: CPV 4833 · UK-wide, n=23
100%70%

Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.

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.

Last 36 months.

This buyerNo bid counts published
The market60 lots with bid counts · division 48 · North West England
13% had one bid
Market · select a colour for counts
1 bid13%
Market: 8 of 60 lots with published bid counts.
2–325%
Market: 15 of 60 lots with published bid counts.
4–637%
Market: 22 of 60 lots with published bid counts.
7+25%
Market: 15 of 60 lots with published bid counts.

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.

Last 36 months.

This buyer1 lot with estimate and award · all categories · too few to chart
The market35 lots with estimate and award · division 48 · North West England
54% below estimate
Market · select a colour for counts
Below estimate54%
Market: 19 of 35 lots with an estimate and award.
Within ±2%23%
Market: 8 of 35 lots with an estimate and award.
Above estimate23%
Market: 8 of 35 lots with an estimate and award.
2

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.

Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list

Lot #1CPV 4833Estimate not published
Expected competition
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 60 past lots.

A forecast, not a list of bidders.

—No model forecast yet13% single-bid risk
Past bids on 60 similar lots
1 bid13%
8 of 60 similar past lots received 1 bid (13%).
2–325%
15 of 60 similar past lots received 2–3 (25%).
4–637%
22 of 60 similar past lots received 4–6 (37%).
7+25%
15 of 60 similar past lots received 7+ (25%).
Comparable past lots usually drew 4 bids.
Commercial price forecast
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.

—Estimate not published
The buyer published no estimate for this lot, so there is nothing to forecast against. A price prediction here would be a number about a number we do not have.

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.

SupplierThis buyer’s earlier contractLotAward valueWhy listed
Bentley Systems UK Ltd.Earlier contractEngineering Softwarestarted Sept 2025——Matched as the earlier contract

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.

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), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
  • 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
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Procurement category
Goods
Notice status
Planned procurement
Procurement threshold
Unspecified in notice
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
1 May 2026, 14:09 BST
Last source update
7 May 2026, 09:00 BST
FTS notice number
2026/S 000-041704
Latest notice
Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
Classification (CPV)
Scheduling software package
Delivery area
North West (UKD)
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-069068 Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

1 May 2026 → 22 May 2026 · 4 dates
  1. Planning notice published172 days ago
    1 May 2026, 14:09 BST
  2. Latest notice published166 days ago
    7 May 2026, 09:00 BST
  3. Contract starts163 days ago
    11 May 2026, 00:00 BST
  4. Market engagement151 days ago
    22 May 2026, 23:59 BST

    Supplier sessions will be held in United Utilities offices in Warrington or via Teams.

Notice history

2 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 1 May 2026
  1. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    1 May 2026, 14:09 BST
    UK2
  2. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    7 May 2026, 09:00 BST
    UK2
Published amendments (1)

Updated contact email at Contracting Authority.

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Pipeline notice
Awards (0)
No award published
Contracts (0)
No contract published
Bid statistics
No aggregate bid statistics published

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

UNITED UTILITIES WATER LIMITED

Contracting authorityPrivate utility GB-COH: 02366678 · GB-PPON: PVVB-5589-BWHX Haweswater House, Lingley Green Avenue, Great Sankey, North West, WA5 3LPContact email

Official documents & specifications (2)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure