Course Tenders

Two ways in. Search the portals for course tenders already published, or move earlier and follow the buyers who retender the same courses on the same annual cycle. Platform-wide, 2,119 notices are open on Stotles right now, gathered from 100+ portals. Reading a buyer's training strategy and framework documents before the notice appears is what separates a bid that answers the spec from one that anticipated it.

Mostly bulk buying of existing provision: CPD places bought from royal colleges and universities, statutory first aid and health and safety courses renewed every year, life support training, IT training for staff. Values are often small, in the low tens of thousands.

The rarer and better paid work is build work. Instructional design, SCORM-compliant e-learning modules, whole induction courses written from scratch, and distance learning curricula subcontracted out by further education colleges.

Courses map to CPV 80000000 (Education and training services), 80500000 (Training services) and 80420000 (E-learning services). Measured alongside this page's keyword filter, 80000000 appears on 2,573 notices, 80500000 on 1,336 and 80420000 on 607.

The codes are not applied as a filter on this page. Buyers tag courses inconsistently, and adding the codes to the keyword filter would cut the results rather than sharpen them.

Awards, by a wide margin. Of 7,464 notices in this filter, 3,597 are awarded contracts. Live open tenders are a thin slice, because much course buying is low value, awarded quickly and reaches the public record only as an award notice. Treat the awarded history as the market map and the 552 pre-tender notices as the pipeline.

Almost every kind of buyer, which is why the category is spread thin rather than concentrated. NHS trusts buy CPD places for clinical staff. Councils buy statutory training courses and the platforms that host them. Further education colleges subcontract distance learning delivery to specialist providers. Central government departments and agencies commission bespoke technical and induction courses. Education and training services is the CPV code that turns up across all of them.