Can I see who won contracts in my category?

Yes. Award notices are published as open data alongside invitations, and they carry the same CPV codes. Filtering awards by your category shows who has won that work before, from which buyers and at what value.

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CPV codes: how to find the tenders a keyword search walks past

Q: What does CPV stand for?

Common Procurement Vocabulary. It is the standard classification system used across UK and EU public procurement to describe what a contract is for.

Q: Why not just search by keyword?

Because buyers describe identical work in very different words. The same groundworks package might be advertised as civil engineering works, site preparation, external works or infrastructure improvements. The CPV code stays consistent where the wording does not.

Supreme Building Services · in Winning UK construction tenders

A CPV code is a standard number classifying what a contract is for. It matters because buyers describe the same work in completely different language — "tree work", "arboricultural services" and "highway tree maintenance" can be one contract type — but the code stays consistent. Filtering by CPV finds contracts a keyword search misses entirely, and it is also how you see which firms have won that same category before.

Why keyword search fails on tenders

Tender notices are written by procurement officers, not by builders, and each authority has its own house style. The same groundworks package might be advertised as "civil engineering works", "site preparation", "external works" or "infrastructure improvements" depending on who typed it.

Search "groundworks" and you will find some of them. You will not find the rest, and you will never know what you missed — which is the dangerous part. A search that returns results feels like it worked.

What the code actually is

The Common Procurement Vocabulary is a classification system used across UK and EU public procurement. Every notice carries at least one code describing the subject of the contract. The codes are hierarchical: broad divisions narrow down to specific work types, so you can filter loosely or tightly depending on how much you want to see.

Because the code is structured data rather than prose, it is reliable in a way the description is not. Two authorities wording a notice differently still classify it the same way.

Using it in practice

Start broader than feels comfortable. A tight filter on one narrow code will miss adjacent work you could do. Widen it, look at what comes back, then tighten.
Filter by category, sort by deadline. Category gets you the right work; deadline tells you whether there is time to price it. You need both — see the full guide to winning UK tenders.
Use the same code on award notices. Awards are published too. Running your category against past awards shows who keeps winning it, from which buyers, and roughly at what value.

What the award history tells you

This is the most underused free intelligence in UK construction. Before spending days on a bid you can see whether the buyer rotates suppliers or returns to the same firm every time, what the work went for previously, and who you would be bidding against.

If a buyer has awarded the same category to the same contractor four times running, that is worth knowing before you commit a week to the submission.

Our tender feed filters by trade category rather than keyword for exactly this reason, and every item links back to its original notice so you can check the classification yourself.

Not sure which categories cover your trade?

Describe what you do and we will tell you which categories to watch — and what is open in them right now.