Buyers mark their own contracts “suitable for SMEs”. Across 193,681 Contracts Finder notices, 81% carry the flag — and among contracts open right now it reaches 93%. A label that appears on almost everything cannot tell you what you can win.
Why it is on everything
The flag is set by the buying organisation when it publishes the notice. It records that the buyer considers the work open to smaller suppliers. It is not a judgement about your business, and it carries no view on whether an SME will actually win.
There is also steady pressure on buyers to look open. Under PPN 001, government organisations set three-year SME spend targets signed off by a Minister, and must publish their SME and VCSE spend annually. The Procurement Act 2023 adds a duty on contracting authorities to have regard to SME participation and to consider removing barriers to entry. Neither obliges a buyer to tick the box on any particular notice — but between them there is little reason to leave it unticked.
That is the honest read: the flag tells you a contract is not closed to you. It does not tell you that you can win it.
What actually decides it
Four things rule a small business in or out of a public contract — and every one of them is stated in the tender, not in the flag.
ISO 9001, Cyber Essentials, CHAS, SafeContractor and the rest. Where one is a condition of participation rather than a scored criterion, not holding it ends the bid however good your price is.
Public liability, employer's liability and professional indemnity are set as minimum values. They are frequently set far above what the contract's own value would justify — a small job carrying a large firm's cover requirement.
Government guidance says turnover minimums should not normally exceed twice the contract's estimated value. They often do, and that single line decides the field before quality is compared.
The number and size of comparable contracts you must evidence. A reasonable-looking requirement here is the most common quiet barrier to a first public contract.
Frequently asked
What ENKII does with this
ENKII reads the certifications, insurance levels, turnover minimums and track-record asks out of the tender documents, checks them against what your business actually holds, and tells you plainly where you are eligible today — and, where you are not, the shortest route to becoming so.
Check what you are eligible for →Sources
Percentages are counted by ENKII across 193,681Contracts Finder notices that carry the buyer's suitability declaration, refreshed daily — figures as at 2026-09-02. The “open now” rate covers 426 notices whose deadline has not yet passed, a much smaller sample than the headline figure. Contracts Finder is the only UK notice source that publishes this field; Find a Tender and Public Contracts Scotland do not, so those notices are outside the count. Policy references are to PPN 001 and the Procurement Act 2023, published by the Cabinet Office under the Open Government Licence.