Incident Response Tenders and Contracts

Track the retainers coming up for renewal, because a cyber incident response partner is nearly always appointed in advance and re-appointed on a cycle. Or get onto the frameworks buyers call off from. Stotles tracks notices from 100+ portals plus the strategy and board papers behind them, so a security team writing an incident response plan shows up well before its tender does.

Mostly a retainer. The contract puts a certified responder on call for a fixed period, with triage, containment, forensics and post-incident reporting priced up front and drawn down only if something happens. Bigger buys wrap it into a managed security operations centre deal, where detection and response sit with one supplier. Preparedness work shows up too: playbooks, readiness reviews and cyber tabletop exercises run against a buyer's own incident response processes.

There is no dedicated code, so buyers file it under general IT services and IT consulting categories, with some narrower work classified as security software development.

This is a thin niche: most notices on record are already-awarded contracts rather than open tenders, and weekly flow is thin, so a single week often brings nothing at all. Read an empty open list as normal for this niche rather than a dead market, and watch the awarded side for expiry dates instead.

Two recur: the Cyber Security Services 3 DPS, used to appoint NCSC-assured cyber incident response partners, and G-Cloud, used for retainer call-offs. Direct awards to a single supplier are common as well, so a framework place is worth having before an incident forces the buyer's hand.