Tender Evaluation Criteria Explained: How Your Bid is Scored

Understanding how evaluators score your bid is the single most important factor in writing winning proposals. If you don't know how points are awarded, you can't optimise for them.

How Scoring Works

Most public sector tenders use a weighted scoring model with two main components:

• Quality (typically 60-70%) — technical capability, methodology, staffing, social value
• Price (typically 30-40%) — usually calculated as a formula where the lowest price gets maximum marks and others are scored proportionally

This means a bid scoring 90/100 on quality and 70/100 on price will beat one scoring 60/100 on quality and 100/100 on price. Quality almost always trumps price in public sector procurement.

The Scoring Descriptors

Evaluators typically use a descriptor scale. Understanding what each level requires is critical:

Score	Descriptor	What Evaluators Need to See
5/5	Excellent	Exceeds requirements with evidence of innovation and added value
4/5	Good	Fully meets requirements with strong, specific evidence
3/5	Acceptable	Meets requirements but evidence is generic or limited
2/5	Minor Reservations	Partially addresses the requirement but with gaps
1/5	Serious Reservations	Fails to address key aspects of the requirement
0/5	Unacceptable / No Response	No relevant response or completely non-compliant

How to Move from "Acceptable" to "Excellent"

The difference between a 3 and a 5 is almost always specificity and evidence:

• 3/5: "We will provide regular progress reports to the client."
• 5/5: "We will provide fortnightly progress reports including KPI dashboards, risk registers, and milestone tracking — format agreed with the Contract Manager during mobilisation. On our recent NHS North West contract (£1.2M, 2024), this approach identified 3 delivery risks early, resulting in zero missed milestones."