Skill Tenders

Two routes. Bid the live competitions, or get in earlier by tracking the funding cycle behind them. Adult skills money is allocated by academic year, so the framework and subcontracting calls cluster in the spring and summer before delivery starts. Stotles pulls notices from 100+ portals and lets you read a buyer's strategy and budget documents alongside them. Platform-wide, 2,121 notices are open right now.

Most of this work is coded under 80000000 (Education and training services), which appeared on 22 of the 50 most recent notices sampled for this page. Below it, 80400000 (Adult and other education services) and 80500000 (Training services) each appeared 10 times. Coding is loose in practice: plenty of digital skills buys come through IT and consultancy codes instead, which is why this page filters on keywords rather than codes.

Further education colleges and training providers are the delivery market, but the buying is mostly done by mayoral combined authorities and unitary councils holding devolved adult skills budgets, plus central government departments commissioning workforce programmes. Prison education and armed forces apprenticeships show up as separate buying routes with their own purchasing systems. The Top buyers block on this page is generated live, so it reflects current activity rather than a fixed list.

5,122 notices match this topic across every stage. Of those, 54 are open, 2,281 have been awarded and 365 sit at pre-tender, which is the early-warning stage where a buyer has signalled intent but not published a competition. The awarded pile being roughly 40 times the open pile is normal for skills: contracts are long, framework-shaped, and retendered on an academic cycle.

Four recurring shapes. Funded delivery, where a provider is paid to teach against an adult skills allocation. Skills Bootcamps, the short sector-specific courses commissioned regionally. Digital and technology skills programmes, often bought as licences or platforms rather than teaching. And diagnostic work: skills audits, skills matrix tooling and capability assessments, which are smaller contracts but a reasonable way in for consultancies. Platform-wide, 0 notices were added last week.