Wales has its own procurement landscape. If your agency works in public sector digital or design and you're not actively monitoring Welsh opportunities, you're leaving a material slice of the UK market to competitors who do.
This guide covers how procurement works in Wales, which portals to use, which buyers to track, and why the monitoring challenge is harder than most agencies realise.
Wales Is a Separate Procurement Jurisdiction
Like Scotland, Wales has devolved government. The Welsh Government and Welsh local authorities operate under their own procurement rules, shaped by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and, until recently, the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
The Procurement Act 2023 applies in Wales for most contracts — but Welsh bodies can set additional requirements around sustainability, Welsh language, and community benefit that don't apply in England. If you're pitching to a Welsh buyer, expect these criteria to feature in the scoring.
The key practical difference: Welsh public sector buyers mostly advertise on a different portal to England.
Sell2Wales: The Primary Portal
Sell2Wales is the Welsh Government's official procurement portal. Most Welsh public sector buyers — including the Welsh Government itself, NHS Wales, local authorities, higher education institutions, and Welsh Government-funded bodies — use it to advertise contracts.
If your agency is only monitoring Contracts Finder or Find a Tender, you will miss Welsh-only opportunities. Sell2Wales is not always syndicated to national portals.
What you'll find on Sell2Wales:
- Open tenders from Welsh Government departments
- Contracts from all 22 Welsh local authorities
- NHS Wales opportunities (seven health boards plus Public Health Wales, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership)
- Higher education (11 universities and colleges)
- Social housing associations registered in Wales
- Welsh Government-funded bodies (Natural Resources Wales, Arts Council of Wales, Sport Wales, etc.)
The portal is free to register on. Searches are keyword and CPV-code based, so the same search discipline applies as on Contracts Finder.
The Welsh Government as a Direct Buyer
The Welsh Government itself is a significant buyer of digital and design services. It runs a range of digital transformation programmes and commissions design work across policy, communications, and citizen-facing services.
Key central departments to track:
- Digital and Data team — responsible for gov.wales and digital public services
- Communications — campaigns, creative, content
- NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) and successor bodies — health tech and digital
Welsh Government contracts above £25,000 must be advertised publicly. Many go through Sell2Wales directly, though larger strategic contracts may also appear on Find a Tender.
NHS Wales: Seven Health Boards, One Shared Services Function
NHS Wales operates through seven regional health boards:
- Aneurin Bevan
- Betsi Cadwaladr
- Cardiff and Vale
- Cwm Taf Morgannwg
- Hywel Dda
- Powys Teaching
- Swansea Bay
Each board can procure independently below certain thresholds. Above threshold, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) handles collaborative procurement. Design agencies pitching into NHS Wales need to track both NWSSP framework opportunities and individual health board contracts on Sell2Wales.
Useful CPV codes for NHS Wales: 79000000 (business services), 72000000 (IT services), 79340000 (advertising services), 92000000 (recreation services — covers some health communications work).
Local Government in Wales: 22 Councils, 22 Procurement Functions
Wales has 22 local authorities, from Cardiff (pop. 360,000) to Merthyr Tydfil (pop. 60,000). Unlike England's fragmented landscape of 374+ councils, Wales is smaller — but each council still runs its own procurement.
The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) provides some collaborative procurement support, but most contracts are advertised independently on Sell2Wales. This means you need to monitor the portal broadly, not just track individual councils.
Larger Welsh councils with more consistent digital/design spend:
- Cardiff Council
- Swansea Council
- Newport City Council
- Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC
- Caerphilly CBC
Smaller councils often use regional consortia or piggyback Crown Commercial Service frameworks (TS3, MCF3, DOS7) — so maintaining CCS framework status is still valuable in Wales.
The Welsh Language Requirement
This is a genuine differentiator. Many Welsh public sector buyers require — or strongly prefer — agencies that can deliver bilingual (Welsh/English) content and design work under the Welsh Language Standards.
If your agency cannot deliver Welsh language content in-house, you have three options:
- Partner with a specialist Welsh translation agency (several operate in Cardiff)
- Flag the gap transparently and budget for subcontracting
- Focus on Welsh buyers who don't have active Welsh Language Standards obligations (some smaller bodies, and UK-funded programmes)
The Welsh Language is assessed as a scored criterion in many Welsh Government and council tenders. Don't ignore it. Ignoring it and hoping it doesn't come up is a common mistake from English agencies.
Well-being of Future Generations Act: What It Means for Your Bid
The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 places a legal duty on Welsh public bodies to consider long-term sustainability, equality, and community benefit in their decision-making — including procurement.
In practice, this means Welsh tender evaluation criteria often include:
- Social value (employment, skills, community impact)
- Environmental sustainability (carbon, waste, supply chain)
- Welsh language and cultural contribution
- Long-term relationship over lowest price
For design agencies, this is mostly good news. It pushes Welsh buyers toward quality-based evaluation and reduces pure price competition. But it means your bid needs to address these criteria explicitly. A boilerplate social value section copied from an English bid will be spotted.
Find a Tender and Contracts Finder: Still Relevant
For contracts above the procurement threshold (~£213,477 for services), Welsh buyers are still required to publish on Find a Tender — the UK-wide portal. So very large Welsh Government contracts will appear nationally.
Contracts Finder picks up some Welsh contracts too, particularly from NHS Wales and larger councils.
The practical advice: monitor Sell2Wales as your primary Welsh portal, and use Contracts Finder / Find a Tender as a secondary layer for above-threshold work. Gaps between the portals are common.
The Monitoring Problem
Welsh procurement is spread across Sell2Wales, Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, and sometimes individual council websites. Health board tenders aren't always on Sell2Wales. Framework opportunities come from CCS. And new opportunities appear without warning.
Manual monitoring of all these sources takes 2–3 hours per week to do properly. Most agencies don't do it. Most rely on occasional searches when they have capacity — which means they miss contracts that closed before they noticed them.
A design agency with an active Welsh public sector track record, or one looking to build one, needs consistent visibility across all these portals. Not weekly. Daily.
Tandara's daily pipeline scans UK procurement portals — including Welsh opportunities via Contracts Finder and Find a Tender — and filters for contracts relevant to design and digital agencies. You get a daily digest of new opportunities so you never miss a relevant tender because you were heads-down on a project. Welsh coverage is part of the standard Tandara subscription.
Wales has its own procurement landscape. If your agency works in public sector digital or design and you're not actively monitoring Welsh opportunities, you're leaving a material slice of the UK market to competitors who do.
This guide covers how procurement works in Wales, which portals to use, which buyers to track, and why the monitoring challenge is harder than most agencies realise.
Wales Is a Separate Procurement Jurisdiction
Like Scotland, Wales has devolved government. The Welsh Government and Welsh local authorities operate under their own procurement rules, shaped by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and, until recently, the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
The Procurement Act 2023 applies in Wales for most contracts — but Welsh bodies can set additional requirements around sustainability, Welsh language, and community benefit that don't apply in England. If you're pitching to a Welsh buyer, expect these criteria to feature in the scoring.
The key practical difference: Welsh public sector buyers mostly advertise on a different portal to England.
Sell2Wales: The Primary Portal
Sell2Wales is the Welsh Government's official procurement portal. Most Welsh public sector buyers — including the Welsh Government itself, NHS Wales, local authorities, higher education institutions, and Welsh Government-funded bodies — use it to advertise contracts.
If your agency is only monitoring Contracts Finder or Find a Tender, you will miss Welsh-only opportunities. Sell2Wales is not always syndicated to national portals.
What you'll find on Sell2Wales:
- Open tenders from Welsh Government departments
- Contracts from all 22 Welsh local authorities
- NHS Wales opportunities (seven health boards plus Public Health Wales, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership)
- Higher education (11 universities and colleges)
- Social housing associations registered in Wales
- Welsh Government-funded bodies (Natural Resources Wales, Arts Council of Wales, Sport Wales, etc.)
The portal is free to register on. Searches are keyword and CPV-code based, so the same search discipline applies as on Contracts Finder.
The Welsh Government as a Direct Buyer
The Welsh Government itself is a significant buyer of digital and design services. It runs a range of digital transformation programmes and commissions design work across policy, communications, and citizen-facing services.
Key central departments to track:
- Digital and Data team — responsible for gov.wales and digital public services
- Communications — campaigns, creative, content
- NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS) and successor bodies — health tech and digital
Welsh Government contracts above £25,000 must be advertised publicly. Many go through Sell2Wales directly, though larger strategic contracts may also appear on Find a Tender.
NHS Wales: Seven Health Boards, One Shared Services Function
NHS Wales operates through seven regional health boards:
- Aneurin Bevan
- Betsi Cadwaladr
- Cardiff and Vale
- Cwm Taf Morgannwg
- Hywel Dda
- Powys Teaching
- Swansea Bay
Each board can procure independently below certain thresholds. Above threshold, NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) handles collaborative procurement. Design agencies pitching into NHS Wales need to track both NWSSP framework opportunities and individual health board contracts on Sell2Wales.
Useful CPV codes for NHS Wales: 79000000 (business services), 72000000 (IT services), 79340000 (advertising services), 92000000 (recreation services — covers some health communications work).
Local Government in Wales: 22 Councils, 22 Procurement Functions
Wales has 22 local authorities, from Cardiff (pop. 360,000) to Merthyr Tydfil (pop. 60,000). Unlike England's fragmented landscape of 374+ councils, Wales is smaller — but each council still runs its own procurement.
The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) provides some collaborative procurement support, but most contracts are advertised independently on Sell2Wales. This means you need to monitor the portal broadly, not just track individual councils.
Larger Welsh councils with more consistent digital/design spend:
- Cardiff Council
- Swansea Council
- Newport City Council
- Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC
- Caerphilly CBC
Smaller councils often use regional consortia or piggyback Crown Commercial Service frameworks (TS3, MCF3, DOS7) — so maintaining CCS framework status is still valuable in Wales.
The Welsh Language Requirement
This is a genuine differentiator. Many Welsh public sector buyers require — or strongly prefer — agencies that can deliver bilingual (Welsh/English) content and design work under the Welsh Language Standards.
If your agency cannot deliver Welsh language content in-house, you have three options:
- Partner with a specialist Welsh translation agency (several operate in Cardiff)
- Flag the gap transparently and budget for subcontracting
- Focus on Welsh buyers who don't have active Welsh Language Standards obligations (some smaller bodies, and UK-funded programmes)
The Welsh Language is assessed as a scored criterion in many Welsh Government and council tenders. Don't ignore it. Ignoring it and hoping it doesn't come up is a common mistake from English agencies.
Well-being of Future Generations Act: What It Means for Your Bid
The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 places a legal duty on Welsh public bodies to consider long-term sustainability, equality, and community benefit in their decision-making — including procurement.
In practice, this means Welsh tender evaluation criteria often include:
- Social value (employment, skills, community impact)
- Environmental sustainability (carbon, waste, supply chain)
- Welsh language and cultural contribution
- Long-term relationship over lowest price
For design agencies, this is mostly good news. It pushes Welsh buyers toward quality-based evaluation and reduces pure price competition. But it means your bid needs to address these criteria explicitly. A boilerplate social value section copied from an English bid will be spotted.
Find a Tender and Contracts Finder: Still Relevant
For contracts above the procurement threshold (~£213,477 for services), Welsh buyers are still required to publish on Find a Tender — the UK-wide portal. So very large Welsh Government contracts will appear nationally.
Contracts Finder picks up some Welsh contracts too, particularly from NHS Wales and larger councils.
The practical advice: monitor Sell2Wales as your primary Welsh portal, and use Contracts Finder / Find a Tender as a secondary layer for above-threshold work. Gaps between the portals are common.
The Monitoring Problem
Welsh procurement is spread across Sell2Wales, Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, and sometimes individual council websites. Health board tenders aren't always on Sell2Wales. Framework opportunities come from CCS. And new opportunities appear without warning.
Manual monitoring of all these sources takes 2–3 hours per week to do properly. Most agencies don't do it. Most rely on occasional searches when they have capacity — which means they miss contracts that closed before they noticed them.
A design agency with an active Welsh public sector track record, or one looking to build one, needs consistent visibility across all these portals. Not weekly. Daily.
Tandara's daily pipeline scans UK procurement portals — including Welsh opportunities via Contracts Finder and Find a Tender — and filters for contracts relevant to design and digital agencies. You get a daily digest of new opportunities so you never miss a relevant tender because you were heads-down on a project. Welsh coverage is part of the standard Tandara subscription.