Tenders

Invitation to Tender: Sector Evidence Base and Investor Ready Narratives

This procurement exercise is being conducted as a below threshold open tender. The tender documents comprise this ITT document, including associated Appendices and Annexes.

Cheshire and Warrington is on the government’s devolution priority programme, expected to form a new Combined Authority in Spring 2026. It is also a member of The Great North pan regional mayoral partnership, which replaced NP11. The area has recently published its Sustainable and Inclusive Economic Strategy (SIES 2025-2045), which sets out the importance of key sectors and clusters to driving transformational growth opportunities, and makes a commitment to set out a roadmap to securing these opportunities through its future 10 year Local Growth Plan which will form the delivery plan for the SIES.

The government’s National Industrial Strategy introduces a new taxonomy for nationally significant growth-driving sectors, and highlights key strengths within Cheshire and Warrington, including as part of a Supercluster for life sciences, digital and technologies with neighbouring areas.  Existing devolved areas such as neighbouring city regions have been working with government on a series of sector plans, which update their understanding of key sector and cluster growth opportunities, including interlinkages and dual-purpose properties across diverse sectors, and set out how the area will secure those opportunities.

Therefore, Enterprise Cheshire & Warrington (ECW), working with and on behalf of, Cheshire and Warrington Local Authority Growth Directors, requires a set of sector evidence bases and investment proposition content for priority high-growth industries, as well as a baseline refresh of the wider sector evidence base.

This work will form Phase 1 of a programme to update the Cheshire and Warrington economic, spatial and investment evidence base as well as providing quality and impactful content for The Great North Summit and UKREIIF in May 2026. Further phases will produce the full Sector Plans for the transformational sectors that will drive growth.

This commission will:

• Provide a robust, data-driven understanding of the business base, assets, and supply chains across defined sectors.
• Ensuring that all CW industrial strategy IS-8 sectors have a consistent analytical foundation and baseline profile, reviewing in the context of CW’s full sector profile
• Preparing enhanced diagnostics and investor-ready content for four frontier sectors: Clean Energy; Life Sciences; Advanced Manufacturing; and a lighter touch enhanced profile for the Digital and Technologies sector.
• Build on / update previously commissioned sector / investment work, avoiding duplication.
• Supply investor-ready content for the emerging Great North / Northern Growth Corridor sector propositions, the Great North Investment Summit (18 May 2026) and UKREiiF (19–21 May 2026) and feed into the proposed Great North India Trade Mission later in 2026
• Feed insights into the Innovation Action Plan and wider evidence base for the future Cheshire & Warrington Combined Authority.
• Provide evidence that could form a key part of the case for Government designation of future business rate retention zones, building on and going beyond the existing Science Corridor Enterprise Zone, by evidencing economic scale, growth opportunity, cluster logic and public–private delivery potential.
• Outline a draft Phase 2 specification for full sector plans for priority sectors
• Further details are in the specification in section 3

The successful bidder will be required to deliver services in accordance with all tender documents and the contract to be placed with the successful bidder. Tenderers are requested to study the specification in detail and ensure that the specified requirements can be met and thus your understanding of our requirements is reflected in your Pricing Schedule return.

The contract is expected to commence late January 2026, with the exact dates to be agreed depending on the agreement between the successful provider and ECW. The work is expected to be substantially completed by April 2026.

The Contract will be awarded for up to five months and the appointed consultant(s) will be assessed for satisfactory performance through continuous monitoring and performance review.

Budget 

A budget of up to £80,000 excl. VAT is available for this phase of the work.

A further substantive phase of work to develop sector plans will be tendered separately during the contract period.

Closing Date & Submission

The closing date and time for the receipt of submissions and all requested documentation relating to this stage is 09:00 hours (9am) on Monday 19^th January 2026. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Submissions will only be accepted if they are returned via email to tenders@cheshireandwarrington.com. Bidders should not send their completed submissions to/copy in any other email address.

Tenderers are advised that it is compulsory to complete and return all of the following documents in the format provided as per the instructions of this ITT. All questions must be answered, where a question does not apply please state “Not applicable”.  Failure to complete the documents in full and/or provide all documentation will result in a non-compliant tender submission and will mean that your tender is not considered.

1. Form of Tender Declaration (Appendix 1)
2. Pricing Schedule (Appendix 2)
3. Supplier Technical Questions & Answer Sheet (Appendix 3)

Tender Queries

If you have any specific questions concerning this document or the process for submission of your proposal, then please email through to: tenders@cheshireandwarrington.com no later than 7^th January 2026. Only questions submitted to this email address will be answered.  Queries received after this date will not be accepted and will not be responded to.

It would be most helpful if queries could be submitted in one email rather than piecemeal. If any question or request for clarification is considered to be of material significance, both the question and the response may be issued for review by all potential providers in a suitably anonymous form. All communication received from potential providers will be treated in strict confidence but are subject to this paragraph.

Invitation to tender for Clean Energy Skills - North West Regional Evidence Base Mapping

This procurement exercise is being conducted as a below threshold open tender. The tender documents comprise this ITT document, including associated Appendices and Annexes.

The recent North West Clean Power Paper makes clear the North West’s ambitions to deliver on the Government’s Clean Power Mission. The major energy and infrastructure projects in the North West are key to unlocking Clean Power 2030 and Industrial Decarbonisation, and are key to economic growth across our region.

It is vital that the workforce and supply chain are in place to support this pipeline, and that as many local residents, suppliers, and educational institutions are involved to secure local benefit. Substantial research has been conducted locally and nationally on workforce readiness and availability across key sectors, including the recent Regional Skills Pilot and North West Retrofit Skills Plan work. To support forward planning, a synthesis of evidence from across the clean energy sectors is required - showing where and when demand peaks for skills and jobs will take place across our geography, and identifying where demand for the same skills across different clean energy sectors could either cause supply problems or unlock new opportunities for collaboration.

Enterprise Cheshire and Warrington, working on behalf of the North West Net Zero Hub and the Office for Clean Energy Jobs in the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, alongside existing and emerging Combined Authorities across the North West, are seeking to appoint Consultancy support to deliver an evidence-base report detailing the likely demand for Clean Energy jobs and skills across the region over the coming decade.

This work should produce:

• An evidence-base report, detailing:
  • Where and when demand for Clean Energy jobs and skills will peak across the different Clean Energy sectors, with sub-regional resolution at SOC4 level.
  • The existing skills provision in relevant key sectors across the North West.
• An interactive dashboard which presents report outputs visually, and enables easy interpretation and exploration.
• Open datasets behind the interactive dashboard output to allow integration into future work by the Hub and relevant partners on Clean Energy Skills Planning.

The successful bidder will be required to deliver services in accordance with all tender documents and the contract to be placed with the successful bidder. Tenderers are requested to study the specification in detail and ensure that the specified requirements can be met and thus your understanding of our requirements is reflected in your Pricing Schedule return.

The contract is expected to commence week beginning January 5th, 2026, with the exact dates to be agreed depending on the agreement between the successful provider and ECW.

Budget 

A budget of up to £30,000 excl. VAT is available.

Closing Date & Submission

The closing date and time for the receipt of submissions and all requested documentation relating to this stage is 09:00 hours (9am) on 12th January 2026. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Submissions will only be accepted if they are returned via email to tenders@cheshireandwarrington.com Bidders should not send their completed submissions to/copy in any other email address.

Tenderers are advised that it is compulsory to complete and return all of the following documents in the format provided as per the instructions of this ITT. All questions must be answered, where a question does not apply please state “Not applicable”.  Failure to complete the documents in full and/or provide all documentation will result in a non-compliant tender submission and will mean that your tender is not considered.

1. Form of Tender Declaration (Appendix 1)
2. Pricing Schedule (Appendix 2)
3. Supplier Technical Questions & Answer Sheet (Appendix 3)