Published 11 August 2026 by eSourcingData
Under the Procurement Act 2023 a buyer building a standing route to market chooses mainly between a framework and a Dynamic Market, with the legacy DPS now a closed chapter. The right answer depends on how fast your supplier base changes, how often you buy, and how much continuing administration you can carry. This guide compares the three honestly, including the costs each one hides.
A framework fixes its supplier list at award. Everyone competes once, the winners are appointed, and for the framework's life, typically up to four years, longer for defence and utilities cases, buyers call off from that fixed pool. Admin is front-loaded into one big procurement; afterwards the list is stable but sealed.
A Dynamic Market never fixes its list. Entry conditions are published, suppliers join whenever they choose, membership cannot be capped, and buyers run competitions among members for each requirement. Admin is spread across the market's life: applications keep arriving, credentials keep expiring, competitions keep running.
The DPS was the old regime's halfway house, permanently open like a Dynamic Market but limited to off-the-shelf purchases. The Procurement Act 2023 retired it; its use cases now belong to the Dynamic Market, without the restriction on contract types.
Choose a framework when the supplier base is stable and known, categories where the credible providers this year will still be the credible providers in year four. Major works with a handful of national contractors, established software categories, regulated professional services with high barriers to entry.
Frameworks also win when you want locked commercial terms: rates and conditions agreed once at award, giving budget certainty across the life of the agreement. And they win when your organisation genuinely cannot resource continuing market administration, a sealed list has no application queue.
The hidden cost is exclusion. Every capable supplier that emerges after award, the local SME that scales up, the specialist that enters your region, is locked out until the next generation. In fast-moving categories that means years of buying from a stale list while better options wait outside.
Choose a Dynamic Market when the supplier base moves: local trades for repairs and maintenance, retrofit and decarbonisation specialists, technology and digital services, growing categories where new entrants matter. The open door keeps the pool current and the competition honest for the whole life of the arrangement.
It also wins for high-frequency buying. Once the market is liquid, each requirement becomes a quick, recorded competition among pre-qualified members, days rather than months, with selection already done at the door. For organisations running dozens or hundreds of procurements a year in a category, the cumulative speed gain is enormous.
And it wins on inclusion targets. Because suppliers can join at any time against proportionate criteria, Dynamic Markets are structurally friendlier to SMEs and local businesses than sealed frameworks, which is why they anchor so many social-value and local-spend strategies, particularly in housing.
The Dynamic Market's advantage, permanent openness, is also its operating burden. Applications must be assessed within a reasonable time, whenever they arrive. Member credentials must be monitored continuously. Pending applicants must be considered before competitions. Transparency notices must be published. None of this is optional, and none of it ever stops.
Authorities that stand up a market without planning for this discover the failure mode quickly: an application backlog, lapsed insurances on the member list, and a market that is legally open but practically stagnant. At that point the compliance advantage inverts into compliance exposure.
This is the gap eSourcingData's operate model fills: the platform automates the assessment, monitoring and competition workflows, and our team runs them, so the market stays genuinely open, genuinely current and genuinely fast, without your procurement team absorbing a permanent new workload.
Ask three questions. One: will the credible supplier list for this category look different in two years? If yes, lean Dynamic Market; if no, lean framework. Two: how often do you buy? Weekly or monthly favours the market's quick competitions; a handful of large call-offs favours a framework. Three: can you resource continuous administration, or buy it as a service? If neither, a framework's sealed list is the safer promise.
Many organisations land on a portfolio: frameworks for stable, high-value categories; Dynamic Markets for volatile, high-volume and SME-heavy ones. The mistake is defaulting everything to frameworks because they feel familiar, under the new Act that habit quietly costs you competition, currency and local spend.
If you are weighing a specific category, map it before you commit: we run that assessment as part of every market design engagement, and it is exactly what our discovery conversation is for.
Not sure which route fits your category?
Tell us the category, the spend pattern and the supplier base, and we will map whether a framework or a Dynamic Market serves it better, and what it would take to stand the market up.
Discuss your categoryWhat is the main difference between a Dynamic Market and a framework?
A framework fixes its supplier list when it is awarded and stays sealed for its life. A Dynamic Market stays permanently open, suppliers can join at any time, membership cannot be capped, and new applicants must be considered before each competition.
Does the DPS still exist under the Procurement Act 2023?
No. The Dynamic Purchasing System belonged to the previous regulations and was replaced by the Dynamic Market, which serves the same permanently-open purpose without the DPS restriction to off-the-shelf goods and services.
Is a Dynamic Market faster than a framework?
Call-offs from both are quick. The difference is currency: a Dynamic Market's competitions draw on a continuously refreshed pool, while a framework competes among the suppliers fixed at award. For high-frequency buying in changing markets, the Dynamic Market usually wins overall.
Which is better for SMEs?
Dynamic Markets, structurally. Proportionate entry conditions and the permanently open door mean an SME can join the moment it is ready, rather than waiting years for a framework to re-open.
What is the biggest risk of running a Dynamic Market?
Under-resourcing the operation. Applications must be assessed within a reasonable time and member compliance kept current, forever. Authorities that cannot carry that workload should either choose a framework or have the market operated for them as a service.
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