Procurement glossary: UK tender terms, defined
The words UK public buyers use when they go to market — what each one asks of a supplier, what the Procurement Act 2023 calls it now, and how often it appears on real notices. Each term has its own page, with the live UK record behind it.
UK notice titles counted · 28 Sept 2026
The glossary
9 terms
The competition and five documents a buyer can send, then three ways of buying again and again. Every definition links to its source.
- Most used in notice titles
- DPS
- Titles using it
- 6,668
01/ Documents
What a buyer sends you
The competition itself, and the documents that open it — each asks for something different back.
The offer, and the competition
Tender
A supplier's formal, priced offer to supply goods, services or works in response to a buyer's invitation; by extension, the competitive process a buyer runs to choose between such offers.
Request for proposal
RFP
A buyer's invitation to propose how you would meet an outcome, and at what price, judged on quality and price.
Invitation to tender
ITT
The pack of documents a buyer issues inviting suppliers to submit a tender; in the Procurement Act 2023, the associated tender documents.
Request for quotation
RFQ
A request to suppliers for a price against a fully specified requirement, typically decided on price.
Request for information
RFI
A buyer's request to the market for information about capability, approach and cost before a procurement; no contract is awarded from it.
Pre-qualification questionnaire
PQQ
A questionnaire used to check a supplier's suitability — legal, financial and technical — before or alongside a tender; under the Procurement Act 2023, conditions of participation.
02/ Ways of buying
How buyers buy again and again
The arrangements that let a buyer award many contracts from one procurement — and how suppliers get on them.
Terms for future contracts
Framework agreement
A contract between a contracting authority and one or more suppliers that provides for the future award of contracts by a contracting authority to the supplier or suppliers (Procurement Act 2023, s.45(2)).
Work awarded under a framework
Call-off
A contract awarded under a framework agreement, on the framework's terms, to a supplier that is party to the framework — with or without competition.
DPS, now the dynamic market
DPS
An open list of qualified suppliers eligible to compete for contracts, which new suppliers can join during its life; under the Procurement Act 2023, a dynamic market.
03/ The UK record
Which terms UK buyers actually use
UK public notice titles using each term, all years. The phrase counts with its acronym, except ITT, which also means Initial Teacher Training. Tap a term for its page.
Notice titles, Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, counted with the same pattern as each term’s own page. The tender term is left out: “tender” in a title is too common to mean anything.
04/ Questions
The terms, told apart
05/ Method
How this page is made
Live figures
Each count is the number of UK public notices — Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, all years — whose title matches the term, using the same pattern as the term's own page. Titles are where a buyer names the document, and they can be counted exactly; descriptions mention the terms far more often.
Figures are cached for up to 24 hours. Definitions are written from the sources below, each read on 28 September 2026.
Outside sources
- Procurement Act 2023 — tender notices, conditions of participation, frameworks and dynamic markets.
- Cabinet Office, Guidance: frameworks — frameworks, open frameworks and call-offs.
- Cabinet Office, Guidance: dynamic markets — the dynamic market that replaces the DPS.
- Find a Tender, Notice types and sequences — the notice types each term belongs to.
- Find a Tender and Contracts Finder — every notice counted on this page, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Platform
Find a Tender
Where UK public tenders are published — every notice counted.
Framework
G-Cloud 15
A live open framework: suppliers, lots and dates from the award notice.
Live
Every open UK tender
Search today's notices, categorised and filterable, free.
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Every UK tender, whatever it’s called
RFP Quest reads every notice — ITT, RFQ, RFI or RFP — and tells you which ones fit your business, free.
RFP Quest reads every notice on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Counts on this page are read from that record and dated at the top.