Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about public sector tendering and how Red Kite helps UK businesses win more contracts.
What is Red Kite?
Red Kite is a UK-based tender discovery platform that monitors public procurement notices from Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, and the EU's TED (Tenders Electronic Daily). It automatically scores every contract opportunity against your company profile so you spend time only on the bids you can realistically win.
What is a public sector tender?
A public sector tender is a formal invitation from a government body, NHS trust, local authority, or other public organisation for businesses to submit a bid to supply goods or services. In the UK, contracts above certain thresholds must be published publicly — currently on Find a Tender (FTS) and Contracts Finder.
How do I find government contracts in the UK?
UK government contracts are published on Find a Tender (find-tender.service.gov.uk) for contracts above the procurement threshold, and on Contracts Finder (contractsfinder.service.gov.uk) for contracts above £10,000. Red Kite aggregates both sources and adds EU-wide notices from TED, filtering them to surface contracts relevant to your business.
How do I find EU public contracts?
EU public contracts are published on TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) at ted.europa.eu. This includes contracts from all EU member states and covers a wide range of sectors. Red Kite monitors TED and presents relevant opportunities alongside UK notices in a single dashboard.
What does Red Kite's AI scoring actually do?
When you set up your company profile — including your business description, keywords, and sectors — Red Kite automatically scores every active contract in the database on a scale of 0–10 for relevance. The scoring uses a two-stage approach: fast keyword and rule-based matching followed by an LLM (large language model) that reads the tender title, summary, buyer, value, and CPV codes to judge how well it fits your business.
What are CPV codes in procurement?
CPV stands for Common Procurement Vocabulary. It is a standardised classification system used across the EU and UK to categorise public contracts by the type of goods or services being procured. Each CPV code is an 8-digit number — for example, 79710000 is Security services and 85000000 is Health and social work services. Red Kite extracts CPV codes from every tender and uses them to improve match accuracy.
Is Red Kite free to use?
Red Kite offers a free registration with access to live tender discovery and AI-powered scoring. You can create an account, set up your company profile, and start reviewing matched opportunities immediately.
How often are new tenders added?
Red Kite ingests new procurement notices daily from Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, and TED. New notices are scored against all registered supplier profiles automatically within minutes of ingestion.
What sectors does Red Kite cover?
Red Kite covers all sectors of UK and EU public procurement, including technology and IT services, security services, facilities management, healthcare, construction, professional services, consultancy, training, and more. The AI scoring is profile-driven, so it works for any sector.
Can I get email alerts for new matching tenders?
Yes. Red Kite can send email alerts when a new tender scores above your minimum fit threshold. You can configure your alert preferences in your account settings, including the minimum score required to trigger a notification.
How is Red Kite different from Find a Tender or Contracts Finder?
Find a Tender and Contracts Finder are raw notice databases — you search them manually. Red Kite reads those same notices, plus TED, and automatically ranks them against your specific business so you see the most relevant opportunities first. It replaces hours of manual searching with a scored, prioritised shortlist.
What is bid qualification?
Bid qualification is the process of deciding whether a contract opportunity is worth pursuing before investing time in writing a proposal. Red Kite automates the first stage of bid qualification by scoring each tender for relevance, value fit, and regional match — so your team focuses effort on winnable bids.
Ready to find your next contract?
Red Kite monitors every UK and EU public contract and surfaces the ones worth your time — so you only bid on work you can win.
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