What Happens When Two Bidders Get Identical Tender Scores?
Sharing identical tender scores is not common — but it does happen. Two submissions score identically across every weighted criterion. The evaluation panel has assessed both fairly, applied the scoring methodology correctly, and arrived at the same overall tender score, for two different organisations. What happens next?
The answer matters more than most suppliers realise — not just because of what buyers do when scores tie, but because understanding the tie-breaking mechanisms shapes how you should approach the margins of your bid strategy. Social value commitments, pricing precision, and the strength of your strongest individual criterion all take on additional significance when you understand how close competitions are actually resolved.
How Common Are Tied Scores?
Genuinely identical overall scores are rare in complex procurements with many evaluation criteria, because the probability of two submissions producing the same weighted total across multiple independently scored questions is low. They are more common in simpler procurements with fewer criteria and cruder scoring scales — a three-question evaluation with scores of 0, 3, or 5 produces far fewer possible total score combinations than a twenty-question evaluation scored on a 0–10 scale with decimal weightings.
Near-ties — where two submissions are within a fraction of a percentage point of each other after weighting — are considerably more common than exact ties. A near-tie and an exact tie produce the same practical problem: the evaluation panel must make an award decision between two submissions that the scoring methodology has not differentiated.
What the Procurement Act 2023 Says
The Procurement Act 2023 does not prescribe a single mandatory tie-breaking mechanism. It requires contracting authorities to establish clear, objective, non-discriminatory award criteria and to apply them transparently — but it allows buyers discretion in how they resolve situations where the application of those criteria does not produce a single winner.
What the Act does require is that any tie-breaking approach is stated in the procurement documents in advance — buyers cannot invent a tie-breaking mechanism after the fact when they discover two submissions have scored identically. A tie-breaking approach that was not disclosed in the ITT or contract notice is potentially challengeable as a departure from the published evaluation methodology.
This advance disclosure requirement means that the tie-breaking approach, where one exists, should be visible in the tender documents. Read the evaluation section of every ITT carefully for any reference to how tied scores will be resolved — this information, where present, is among the most strategically valuable content in the document.
Common Tie-Breaking Approaches in Practice
Price as the tiebreaker
The most common tie-breaking approach in UK public procurement is to award to the lower-priced submission where quality scores are identical. This makes intuitive sense — if two organisations have demonstrated equivalent capability and commitment in their quality responses, price is the remaining differentiator. Where price is the stated tiebreaker, this has a direct implication for pricing strategy: in a highly competitive procurement where you expect the quality competition to be close, the precision of your pricing matters more than in a competition where you expect a clear quality differential.
The highest score on the most heavily weighted criterion
Some buyers state that in the event of an overall tie, the award goes to the submission with the highest score on the most heavily weighted individual criterion — typically the technical methodology or the social value section. This approach rewards depth on the highest-priority element rather than overall consistency. Where this mechanism is disclosed, it changes where you invest your strongest content — the highest-weighted section becomes even more critical than its weighting alone would suggest.
A further assessment stage
Some buyers reserve the right to conduct a further assessment — a presentation, an interview, or a site visit — specifically to differentiate between submissions that have scored identically after the written evaluation. This approach is more resource-intensive for both buyer and suppliers, but it gives both the opportunity to resolve a genuine quality tie through direct interaction rather than a secondary scoring mechanism.
Random selection
In procurement, random selection — drawing lots or an equivalent mechanism — is a last resort and is very rarely used in practice. It is more commonly referenced in procurement guidance as a theoretical backstop than as an actual outcome. Most buyers are uncomfortable with the accountability implications of a random award decision and will exhaust other differentiating mechanisms before reaching this point.
Re-evaluation with moderation
Where the evaluation panel is not unanimous on the tied scores — where some evaluators scored one submission higher and others scored the other submission higher — a moderated re-evaluation may resolve the tie without a secondary mechanism. The evaluation chair facilitates discussion among evaluators to reach a consensus score. This is not technically a tiebreaker — it is a quality assurance step that may reveal that the tied scores were themselves a product of averaging rather than genuine identity.
What This Means for Your Bid Strategy
Understanding how ties are broken changes the relative importance of different elements of your submission — particularly at the margins of a highly competitive procurement.
Social value can be the decisive differentiator. Where social value is the most heavily weighted quality criterion, or where it is the stated tiebreaker, the specificity and credibility of your social value commitments becomes the deciding factor in a close competition. A social value response with named local partners, specific employment targets, and a credible delivery monitoring framework outscores a generic one — and in a tied overall competition, this difference is the margin of victory. Our guide to social value and tendering covers how to develop commitments that score at the highest mark levels.
Pricing precision matters in close competitions. Where price is the stated tiebreaker, the difference between winning and losing a tied competition may come down to a fraction of the total contract value. This does not mean undercutting to the point of commercial unsustainability — it means understanding the scoring model well enough to know what price position maximises your overall score while remaining the lower price if quality scores tie. Our guide to tender evaluation criteria covers how price scoring models work and how to model your pricing position against them.
Your strongest criterion should be your best work. Where the highest score on the most heavily weighted criterion is the stated tiebreaker, the depth and specificity of your technical methodology response — or whichever criterion carries the highest weighting — may be the margin between first and second in a close competition. Allocate your strongest evidence, your most specific buyer-aligned content, and your most thorough review to the highest-weighted questions in every submission.
Prepare for presentations even when not mandatory. Where a buyer reserves the right to conduct a further assessment stage to resolve tied scores, being prepared to present at short notice — with the right people, the right content, and a clear narrative — can be decisive. Buyers who request a further assessment after a tied written evaluation are often looking for something the written submission could not fully convey: confidence, expertise, and genuine understanding of their specific context. Our guide to tender presentations covers how to prepare effectively for this stage.
Frequently Asked Questions About Tied Tender Scores
Can I challenge an award decision if I believe the tie-breaking mechanism was not disclosed in advance?
Yes — where a contracting authority applies a tie-breaking mechanism that was not stated in the procurement documents, this is potentially a procedural breach of the Procurement Act 2023’s transparency and equal treatment requirements. Challenges are available through the procurement challenge process — with strict time limits that begin from the date you knew or ought to have known about the breach. Seek specialist procurement legal advice immediately if you believe this applies to an outcome you have received. Do not delay — the limitation period is short.
Is it possible for an award to be made to a higher-priced submission in a tie?
Yes — where price is not the stated tiebreaker and the mechanism used favours a different criterion. For example, if the tiebreaker is the highest score on the social value criterion, and the higher-priced submission scored higher on social value, that submission wins. The tiebreaker overrides price unless price is specifically stated as the mechanism. This is another reason to read the evaluation section of every ITT carefully rather than assuming price always decides close competitions.
What if there is no tiebreaker mechanism stated in the ITT?
This is more common than it should be. Where no tiebreaker is stated, the buyer must decide how to proceed — and any approach they take that was not disclosed in the procurement documents is at risk of challenge. In practice, many buyers in this situation seek legal advice and then disclose the intended mechanism to all bidders before applying it. If you discover after the fact that your submission tied with another and no tiebreaker was disclosed, you are in a stronger position to challenge the outcome if you do not agree with how it was resolved.
Compete at the Margins — and Win Them
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About the author: Written by Joshua Smith, a seasoned bid-writing expert with experience across the UK, Middle East and US, helping organisations secure the contracts they deserve through high-quality, competitive tender responses.