For suppliers · Procurement Act 2023
Join a dynamic market, once
Qualify once, then compete for everything that comes through the market. Bring your core information across from the Central Digital Platform with a share code, choose the parts that match your work, and add the evidence the CDP does not hold. No closing date, and no cap on how many suppliers get in.
What protects you
Three things that are not ours to concede
If you have paid for a qualification scheme before and got little back, you are right to be sceptical. So the reassurance here is not a promise from us. It is what the Procurement Act requires of any dynamic market, including ours.
You can apply at any time
A dynamic market must accept applications throughout its life. There is no window to miss, no round to wait for, and no advantage to whoever happened to be paying attention in launch week.
Procurement Act 2023, s.36(6)(a)
Membership cannot be capped
The market cannot limit how many suppliers join. Meet the published conditions and you are in, however many are already there. Nobody can buy scarcity.
Procurement Act 2023, s.36(7)(a)
The rules cannot move afterwards
Conditions of participation are fixed at establishment for the life of the market, so the bar you cleared cannot be raised behind you.
Procurement Act 2023, s.36(7)(b)
Before you start
What to have ready
Registration takes about forty-five minutes if you have these to hand, and considerably longer if you are hunting for a certificate while the form is open. Gather them first.
Company details
Registered name, number, addresses and the trading name if it differs.
CDP registration
Central Digital Platform account and a share code ready to paste.
Insurances
Employer’s liability, public liability and professional indemnity certificates, with expiry dates.
Accreditations
ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, Cyber Essentials or Plus, and any sector licences.
Health and safety
Policy, and any scheme membership such as a safety assessment accreditation.
Capability evidence
What you deliver, where you deliver it, and the size of contract you can carry.
References
Two or three recent, contactable, and relevant to the parts you are applying for.
Social value
What you already do, evidenced. Not what you intend to start doing.
Step by step
Registering, in seven steps
Most of it is automatic. The two steps that need thought are choosing your parts and providing evidence, and both are worth the thought.
Create your account
About five minutes
Your organisation details, a contact who will actually read the emails, and the categories of work you genuinely do. That last one matters more than it looks: it decides which parts of the market you will be shown, and selecting everything to be safe means being invited to compete for work you do not want and will not bid for, which helps nobody.
Tip: Use a monitored shared mailbox rather than one person’s address. Membership outlives employment.
Get a Central Digital Platform share code
One-off, and reusable everywhere
If you have not registered on the Central Digital Platform yet, do that first. It is the UK government platform holding your core supplier information, and it issues a PPON that identifies you consistently across public procurement. Once registered, generate a share code. It is a short reference that authorises a buyer or a market to pull your core information directly.
Tip: You register on the CDP once, not once per market. The same share code approach works anywhere the CDP is accepted.
Import your core data
Seconds, not an afternoon
Paste the share code and your identity and PPON, core business information, connected persons and exclusion information come straight across. Nothing is retyped, which means nothing is mistyped, and the version we hold is the version the government holds rather than a copy that drifts.
Tip: If something looks wrong after the import, correct it on the CDP rather than here. A second copy that disagrees with the first helps nobody.
Choose your parts
The decision that shapes everything after it
A market is divided into parts, so a specialist can join the one that fits rather than being sized out by one broad category. Select the parts that match work you actually deliver. Each part may carry its own conditions and evidence requirements, so choosing three does not mean three times the work, but it does mean meeting the conditions for each.
Tip: Pick the parts you would be pleased to be invited to compete for. Breadth for its own sake produces invitations you ignore, and a pattern of ignored invitations is noticed.
Add what the CDP does not hold
Once, rather than per procurement
Insurances with their expiry dates, ISO certifications, Cyber Essentials, sector licences and accreditations, technical capability, geographic coverage, case studies and references, and your social value profile. This is the part that used to be re-uploaded for every single tender, and doing it once is most of the value of a market.
Tip: Upload the certificate itself, not a summary of it. An assessor who has to ask for the document is an assessor who has stopped the clock.
Submit
Acknowledged immediately
You get an automatic acknowledgement at once, and a completeness check within one to two working days. Completeness is not the same as qualification: it means somebody has confirmed the application can actually be assessed. If something is missing you hear at this point rather than a fortnight later.
Tip: Submitting an incomplete application to hold your place does not hold your place. There is no queue to be in.
Qualify
Target five to ten working days
Your application is assessed against the published conditions of participation and nothing else. The decision and its reasons are recorded. If you are admitted, you are a member of the parts you applied for and eligible to compete. If not, you are told which condition was not met, and you can reapply as soon as it is.
Tip: Read the conditions of participation before you apply, not after. They are published, they are fixed for the market’s life, and they are the entire basis of the decision.
Watch it happen
The six steps, animated
The same walkthrough, shown rather than described. Each one runs as you reach it, and there is nothing to play, download or wait for.
01 Create your account
02 Get a CDP share code
03 Choose your parts
04 Add your evidence
05 What happens after you submit
06 Staying qualified
Prefer to read it? The written walkthrough above covers the same ground in more detail, and the portal guide covers what to do once you are in.
Getting it right first time
Why applications get sent back
Almost none of these are judgements about your business. They are paperwork problems, and every one of them is avoidable in the ten minutes before you press submit.
Expired evidence
By far the most common. An insurance certificate that ran out last month is not a judgement about your business, it is a certificate that ran out. Check dates before submitting.
Evidence that does not match the part
References for work in a different discipline, or capability described in general terms when the condition asks for something specific.
Missing the actual document
A statement that you hold ISO 9001 is not the certificate. Assessors verify against the document.
Applying for parts you do not deliver
Selecting every part to maximise opportunity usually means failing the conditions on most of them, which delays the ones you would have passed.
Financial information that raises a question nobody answered
If there is context behind the figures, provide it up front rather than waiting to be asked.
A rejection is not permanent. Because a dynamic market accepts applications at any time, you close the gap and reapply immediately. There is no window to wait for, which is the practical difference between this and every framework you have missed.
Once you are in
What membership actually gets you
What we ask for
We do not ask twice for what the CDP already holds
If your core government information is missing or out of date, we point you at the Central Digital Platform to update it rather than keeping a second copy that disagrees with the first.
Comes from the CDP
- Identity and PPON
- Core business information
- Financial information shared through CDP
- Connected persons
- Exclusion information
- Core qualifications and classifications
We ask you once for
- Insurance records, with expiry tracking
- ISO, Cyber Essentials, licences, accreditations
- Technical capability and geographic coverage
- Case studies and buyer references
- Social value profile and evidence
- Market-specific qualification responses
What you can expect from us
Service standards
Fees
What it costs, and what it never costs
Founding cohort suppliers join free while the market is being established. After that, any supplier fee for a utilities dynamic market must relate to obtaining and maintaining membership, and must be set out transparently in the market documentation before the market is established. You will see the figure before you are asked for it.
There is no percentage-of-contract-award fee. If you win work through the market, what you won is what you keep. For an ordinary dynamic market the Act permits a fee only from suppliers that are awarded a contract; for a utilities market the mechanism is membership instead. Either way, the basis is published rather than negotiated case by case.
Winning work
How a competition works once you are a member
Membership is not the finish line, it is the qualification round. Here is what happens afterwards, because it is the part suppliers ask about most and the part market pages tend to skip.
An opportunity is published to your part
A buyer using the market sets up a competition against one or more parts. Every member of those parts is invited, and pending applicants are considered before the competition concludes, so somebody who applied last week is not automatically shut out.
You decide whether to bid
Nothing obliges you to. An invitation is an opportunity, not a commitment, and declining does not affect your membership. What is worth doing is declining visibly rather than silently, so the buyer knows the market responded.
You bid on the work, not on your paperwork
Your identity, insurances and accreditations are already held and current. The submission is about method, price, delivery and social value, rather than re-uploading the same six certificates you uploaded to the last four portals.
Clarifications are shared with everyone
Questions and answers go to every bidder on the same terms. That is an equal treatment obligation, not a courtesy, and it is why answers are published rather than emailed back individually.
Evaluation against published criteria
Scored against the criteria in the tender, moderated, and recorded with the reasoning. If you are unsuccessful you receive an assessment summary explaining why, which is worth reading properly because the same evaluators will see your next bid.
Award, standstill and contract
The award decision, the standstill period, and the contract itself. Contract terms are competed for each requirement rather than fixed years earlier, which is the substantive difference from calling off a framework.
Suppliers bidding together as a consortium or joint venture are supported, which matters for larger packages where no single SME could carry the whole requirement but three of them together comfortably can.
Worth knowing
Dynamic market, framework or DPS: a supplier’s view
Most comparisons of these are written for buyers. This one is not, and it includes the case where a framework is genuinely better for you, because pretending otherwise would be the sort of thing that makes suppliers distrust market operators in the first place.
Where a framework suits you better
If you are already on the incumbent framework, it is a closed field. Fewer competitors, a known buyer, and four years of it. That is a real commercial advantage and a dynamic market removes it, because a market that cannot be closed cannot be closed in your favour either.
Where a dynamic market suits you better
If you are not on the framework, it is everything. No waiting years for a window, no being sized out by a category drawn for national contractors, and a route in that opens the week you are ready rather than the year the buyer happens to re-procure.
What changed from a DPS
A dynamic market carries forward the continuous openness of a DPS and adds firmer obligations: membership cannot be capped, applications must be assessed within a reasonable period, and pending applications must be considered before each competition concludes. In practice it means an application cannot simply sit.
The honest summary: a dynamic market is better for the supplier who is currently outside, and slightly worse for the supplier who is comfortably inside a closed arrangement. Since most suppliers are outside most arrangements most of the time, it is better for most suppliers most of the time. If you want the buyer’s side of the same question, the decision guide sets out all five routes.
Social value
Commitments, not intentions
Social value decides more competitions than most suppliers expect, and it is where good businesses lose to weaker ones that simply answered the question properly. Two things are worth knowing before you bid.
First, it is measured rather than described. A buyer defines the measures and the evidence they want at tender stage. You commit to outcomes you can count: apprenticeships started, local spend, hours contributed, carbon reduced. A paragraph about your values scores badly against a competitor who committed to four apprenticeships and said how they would evidence them.
Second, what you commit to becomes a contract obligation. Winning commitments carry into the contract as records, you report delivery against them, and the buyer validates the evidence. Committed against delivered is visible. So promise what you will actually do, because over-promising to win is a problem you have simply moved to month six, and it follows you into the next competition through your performance record.
Your social value profile is part of your market membership, so the evidence you have already built up is held once rather than reassembled for every bid.
Questions
Joining a dynamic market, answered
How does a supplier join a dynamic market?
By applying against the published conditions of participation. Under section 36(6)(a) of the Procurement Act 2023 a dynamic market must accept applications at any time, so there is no closing date and no round to miss. Applications are assessed against the published conditions and nothing else.
Can the number of suppliers in a dynamic market be capped?
No. Section 36(7)(a) prevents a dynamic market from limiting the number of members. If you meet the published conditions of participation you are admitted, regardless of how many suppliers are already in the market.
What is a CDP share code and where do I get one?
The Central Digital Platform holds the core supplier information the UK government defines: your identity and PPON, core business information, connected persons and exclusion information. You register once on the Central Digital Platform, and it issues a share code that lets you pass that information to a buyer or a market rather than retyping it. One registration, reusable everywhere it is accepted.
What is a PPON?
A PPON is the persistent procurement organisation number issued through the Central Digital Platform. It identifies your organisation consistently across UK public procurement, so the same supplier is recognisable from one procurement to the next rather than being re-keyed as a new entry each time.
How long does qualification take?
Applications are acknowledged immediately and checked for completeness within one to two working days. The qualification decision itself targets five to ten working days for a complete application, depending on complexity. If something is missing you are told what, rather than simply rejected.
What does it cost a supplier to join?
Founding cohort members join free while the market is being established. Beyond that, for a utilities dynamic market any supplier fee must relate to obtaining and maintaining membership and must be set out transparently in the market documentation before establishment. There is no percentage-of-contract-award fee.
Can the qualification requirements change after we have joined?
Not once the market is established. Section 36(7)(b) fixes the conditions of participation for the life of the market, which is why they are consulted on beforehand and why supplier input at that stage genuinely matters.
What happens if my application is rejected?
You are told the reason, against the published condition you did not meet. Rejection is not permanent: a dynamic market accepts applications at any time, so once the gap is closed you can reapply immediately rather than waiting for a window. Most rejections are missing or expired evidence rather than a genuine failure to qualify.
Do I have to reapply for every contract?
No. That is the point of a market. You qualify once for the parts you selected, and after that you are invited to compete for work in those parts without re-proving your identity, insurances and accreditations each time.
What happens if my insurance or accreditation expires?
You are reminded ninety, thirty and seven days before it lapses, and you upload the replacement. Membership depends on continuing to meet the conditions, so evidence that expires without being replaced puts membership at risk. The reminders exist because nobody should lose work over a certificate nobody chased.
Is joining a dynamic market better than being on a framework?
It is different rather than uniformly better. A framework, once you are on it, is a closed field, which is good for you and closed to everyone else. A dynamic market never closes, so competition is wider, but you cannot be locked out of it either, and you never have to wait years for a window to reopen. For a supplier who is not already on the incumbent framework, a dynamic market is usually the better proposition.
Does joining guarantee me work?
No. Membership makes you eligible to compete for work in the parts you qualified for. It does not commit any buyer to spend anything with you, and any market that suggests otherwise is misleading you.
The market is not open yet
Register now and you will hear the day applications open. Registering is free, involves no assessment, and is not a requirement: when the market is established, any supplier may apply on identical terms whether they registered or not.
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