Security bid writing

Security contracts are won on trust before price: buyers are handing you their buildings, people and reputational risk. We write tenders for manned guarding, keyholding and response, CCTV and electronic security, events and front-of-house — turning your operational discipline into answers that score.

The licensing floor — and what sits above it

SIA licensing is the entry ticket, and Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) status is the de facto filter on most serious tenders — many buyers require it or score it heavily at selection stage. But licences only open the door. Above the compliance floor, evaluators differentiate on the things that actually go wrong in security contracts: officer welfare and retention, assignment instruction quality, supervision and response times. That’s where the bid is won.

What security evaluators score

• Officer welfare and retention — pay position, rostering that prevents fatigue, real turnover figures; buyers know churn is the sector’s disease and reward evidence of the cure
• TUPE transitions — most guarding tenders inherit officers; your consultation, vetting-refresh and uniform-day plan must be specific
• Assignment instructions and supervision — how AIs are built, reviewed and audited; spot-check and welfare-visit regimes with frequencies
• Vetting — BS 7858 screening operated properly, with timescales and interim-cover policy
• Incident management — escalation, body-worn video policy, liaison with police and client; anonymised real examples score
• Technology integration — patrol verification, lone-worker protection, reporting portals — evidence of systems in live use

What we write for security firms

• Manned guarding tenders
• Keyholding and mobile response bids
• CCTV and systems tenders
• Events and venue security bids
• Framework and DPS applications
• PQQ and SQ completion
• TUPE and mobilisation plans
• Social value responses

Where security bids leak marks

From our reviews: welfare answers that talk about “our family culture” instead of rota patterns and pay rates; AIs described as existing rather than shown as managed documents with review cycles; and pricing built on hours that the welfare answer quietly contradicts. Evaluators cross-read — consistency between your quality answers and your commercials is itself a trust signal. The wider failure patterns are catalogued in our guide to losing bids.

Routes to market

Councils, NHS trusts, universities and housing providers tender guarding and response continuously — watch the national portals plus sector vehicles, and expect security lots inside integrated FM tenders too, where partnering with an FM prime may beat bidding alone. Our free tender scanning covers the security market; ask for the security feed when you get in touch.

Evidencing officer welfare — the answer that wins guarding bids

Above the SIA and ACS compliance floor, manned guarding contracts are won and lost on one theme more than any other: officer welfare and retention. Buyers know that high turnover means unfamiliar officers, gaps in cover and falling standards, so they probe your workforce stability hard — and they want numbers, not culture statements. “We treat our officers like family” scores nothing against your actual quarterly turnover figure, your average tenure, your pay position relative to the going rate, your rostering rules that prevent fatigue, and your welfare-visit frequency. The same goes for assignment instructions and supervision: evaluators want to see AIs as managed, reviewed documents and a supervision regime with real spot-check frequencies, not assertions that both exist. We pull these operational numbers out of your business and place them where they score — and if the numbers themselves are weak, we’ll tell you honestly before the buyer does, because a welfare answer that contradicts your pricing is a trust signal in the wrong direction.