Public tenders - Whom are they interesting for?
We are often asked: "Are public tenders really interesting for us? We are web developers. How big is the demand in the public sector?"
We will try to give a relatively general answer here.
The volume of tenders awarded by public institutions is huge. In 2023, there were approximately 42,000 EU-wide tenders in the IT and consulting sectors with a total value of 260 billion EUR. This represents about 15% of the total IT and consulting services
Tenders by Skill Categories
The tenders are distributed as follows across the various skill categories:
The number of tenders is one thing, the competition is another. Here, we show the average number of bids received per skill category:
It is immediately evident that competition, and thus the sales effort, is higher for classic consulting topics than for the more technical IT issues.
Geographical Distribution
For many IT issues, the location is not relevant. However, in practice, it is observed that many projects are awarded to providers from their own country. The tenders are distributed as follows across the different countries:
| Abbr. | Country | Tenders |
|---|---|---|
| ALB | Albania | 5 |
| AUT | Austria | 616 |
| BEL | Belgium | 1,391 |
| BGR | Bulgaria | 909 |
| BIH | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 7 |
| CHE | Switzerland | 565 |
| CYP | Cyprus | 82 |
| CZE | Czech Republic | 1,292 |
| DEU | Germany | 6,691 |
| DNK | Denmark | 406 |
| ESP | Spain | 3,786 |
| EST | Estonia | 307 |
| FIN | Finland | 823 |
| FRA | France | 7,193 |
| GBR | United Kingdom | 14 |
| GEO | Georgia | 0 |
| GRC | Greece | 837 |
| HRV | Croatia | 444 |
| HUN | Hungary | 454 |
| IRL | Ireland | 1,044 |
| ISL | Iceland | 38 |
| ITA | Italy | 1,295 |
| LIE | Liechtenstein | 8 |
| LTU | Lithuania | 828 |
| LUX | Luxembourg | 201 |
| LVA | Latvia | 251 |
| MDA | Moldova | 59 |
| MKD | North Macedonia | 104 |
| MLT | Malta | 146 |
| MNE | Montenegro | 5 |
| NLD | Netherlands | 1,847 |
| NOR | Norway | 1,363 |
| POL | Poland | 3,880 |
| PRT | Portugal | 934 |
| ROU | Romania | 1,539 |
| SRB | Serbia | 2 |
| SVK | Slovakia | 451 |
| SWE | Sweden | 1,979 |
| TUR | Turkey | 11 |
| UKR | Ukraine | 4 |
Distribution of Tenders on Core Skills
Software development and organizational consulting, for example, are relatively large areas. Therefore, we also show how the tenders are distributed across the individual skills and how high the competition is in each area. Multiple assignments are possible.
| Skill | Anteil | Eingegangene Angebote (Mittel) |
|---|---|---|
| Project Management | 5.1% | 4.5 |
| Network Management | 3.6% | 2.4 |
| Public Relations | 3.5% | 3.8 |
| Accounting | 2.9% | 3.4 |
| Recruiting | 2.8% | 4.8 |
| Storage | 2.7% | 2.2 |
| Business Analysis | 2.5% | 11.1 |
| Transformation Management | 2.5% | 5.1 |
| Statistics | 2.5% | 2.5 |
| Cloud | 2.3% | 2.7 |
| Communication | 1.6% | 3.9 |
| IT Security | 1.4% | 4.8 |
| Reporting | 1.4% | 3 |
| Audit | 1.3% | 3.2 |
| Graphic Design | 1.3% | 6.9 |
| Monitoring | 1.3% | 2.6 |
| Coaching | 1.2% | 9.9 |
| Data Science | 1.1% | 4.2 |
| Social Media | 1.1% | 4 |
| Controlling | 0.9% | 12.6 |
| Web Development | 0.9% | 2.9 |
| Artificial Intelligence | 0.8% | 4 |
| Frontend Development | 0.8% | 3.9 |
| Quality Management | 0.6% | 4.5 |
| Business Intelligence | 0.6% | 4.3 |
| Backend Development | 0.5% | 4.3 |
| IT Service Management | 0.5% | 3.8 |
| Container | 0.4% | 4 |
| Server Operation | 0.4% | 2.6 |
| Agile Methods | 0.3% | 7.4 |
| User Interfaces | 0.3% | 6.8 |
| Digital Workplace | 0.3% | 3 |
| DevOps | 0.3% | 6.8 |
| PMO | 0.3% | 20.8 |
| Outsourcing | 0.3% | 3 |
| Risk Management | 0.2% | 4.8 |
| IoT | 0.2% | 4.2 |
| Test Management | 0.2% | 6.3 |
| Leadership | 0.2% | 3.4 |
| Electrical Engineering | 0.2% | 2.8 |
| App Development | 0.2% | 3 |
| Big Data | 0.2% | 4.7 |
| Mainframe | 0.2% | 2.2 |
| User Experience | 0.1% | 5.9 |
| Relational Databases | 0.1% | 4.1 |
| Database Administration | 0.1% | 3.3 |
| Computer-Aided Design | 0.1% | 2 |
| Online Marketing | 0.1% | 6.5 |
| Product Owner | 0.1% | 14.8 |
| Moderation | 0.1% | 3.2 |
Hence, for example, one can expect to receive about 12 public contracts per year in the field of web development in Spain (Number of tenders in Spain per year x proportion of web projects / average bids per tender).