How to use TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)

TED is the acronym of Tenders Electronic Daily. It is a supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and contains within it all the tender invitations and contract opportunities which require compulsory notification across the European Union Member States. Current legislation requires that the majority of supply and service procurements within the European Union with a value above 200,000 euros must be advertised in the OJEU.

There are a number of companies in the UK who provide search services providing Tender information to architects and other professionals. These services usually use either email or rss feeds as the delivery method of tender information that fit the provided requirements. Alternatively you can search TED yourselves! This help page should provide sufficient instructions to get you started searching TED.

To get to the TED website go to http://ted.europa.eu If you haven't used the site before you need to register . Registration is via a simple web form and on receipt of a confirmation email ( which arrives within minutes< ) you can log in and start searching. I found the "extended search" interface the best to use. To start making meaningful searches you just need to consider two main criteria the CPV code and The NUTS code.

The CPV code refers to the type of tender, these are 7 digit codes, for architectural services they all start with the digits 712 . You can look up all the different individual architectural codes on the site or just follow the 712 with an * ( asterisk ) and it will include all of them.

71000000 Architectural Construction Engineering and Inspection Services
71200000 Architectural and related services
71210000 Advisory Architectural Services
71220000 Architectural Design Services
71221000 Architectural services for buildings
71222000 Architectural Services for outdoor areas
71223000 Architectural Services for Building Extensions
71230000 Organisation of Architectural design competitions
71240000 Architectural, Engineering and planning services
71241000 Feasibility study, advisory service, analysis
71242000 Project and Design preparation, estimate of costs 71243000 Draft Plans ( systems and integration)
71244000 Calculation of costs, monitoring of costs
71245000 Approved plans working drawings and specifications
71246000 Determining and listing of quantities in construction
71247000 Supervision of Building Work
71248000 Supervision of project and documentation
71250000 Architectural Engineering and Building Surveying services
71251000 Architectural and Building Surveying services

The NUTS code indicates the location of the work. The United Kingdom codes are preceded by UK. There are 182 regional codes but again adding an *(asterisk) after the UK is a simple catch all approach. Main regionbal codes are as follows:

UK United Kingdom
UKC North East England
UKD North West England
UKE Yorkshire and Humber
UKF East Midlands
UKG West Midlands
UKH East of England
UKI London
UKJ South East England
UKK South West England
UKL Wales
UKM Scotland
UKN Northern Ireland
UKZ Extra Regio
On the extended search page there is a Manage profiles button . This allows you to save a profile ( effectively a saved set of search criteria ). If you load a saved profile you can also turn on "set rss feed" By clicking on "view rss feed url" you can follow the link to your personalized rss feed page. Book mark this in your browser and your latest Tender search results are just a mouse click away!

Tenders Electronic Daily is available at http://ted.europa.eu