Dft tender £350m for advice and consultancy etc

Snow1964 · 3 Jun 2026

DfT have issued a tender for massive upto £350m for some advice, technical info, consultancy etc. for 3 years from 31 July 2027 to July 2030

Maybe just me, but seems huge sum to cover some gaps in knowledge, and a gravy train for those receiving the funds, that amount is equivalent to 1000 people earning £117k per year. What do others think ?

1 buyer

Department for Transport London

Description
In line with its commitment to increasing investment in the UK’s transport infrastructure, the Department for Transport (DfT) requires ongoing access to high-quality, specialist technical and commercial advisory services. This need is currently fulfilled through the STARThree Framework, which succeeded the Specialist Technical Advisory for Rail (STARTwo) Framework—both managed by the Department’s Group Commercial Directorate (GCD). The Department for Transport intends to publish the STARFour Framework, a fourth generation, closed, multi-lot framework agreement to succeed the STARThree Framework (expiring July 2027). However, this will be subject to approvals and market engagement feedback. STARFour will provide continued access to specialist technical and commercial advisory services across all transport sectors, supporting the Department, its ALBs, and other qualifying bodies. Building on the success of STARThree, the new framework will encourage SME participation, promote innovation, and deliver value for money through streamlined procurement routes including mini-competitions and direct awards. The STARFour Framework is essential to maintain a fit-for-purpose, flexible, and cost-effective route for specialist transport technical and commercial advice following the expiry of STARThree. As transport challenges grow—across net zero strategies, decarbonisation, multi-modal integration, and industry restructuring—STARFour will ensure DfT, ALBs and qualifying bodies have continued access to critical expertise across all transport sectors, not just rail.

CPV Codes

71241000 - Feasibility study, advisory service, analysis

71311000 - Civil engineering consultancy services

71311200 - Transport systems consultancy services

71311300 - Infrastructure works consultancy services

71313410 - Risk or hazard assessment for construction

71313420 - Environmental standards for construction

71313440 - Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) services for construction

71313430 - Environmental indicators analysis for construction

71313450 - Environmental monitoring for construction

72240000 - Systems analysis and programming services

73210000 - Research consultancy services

73220000 - Development consultancy services

73300000 - Design and execution of research and development

79311100 - Survey design services

79311300 - Survey analysis services

79311410 - Economic impact assessment

79312000 - Market-testing services

79313000 - Performance review services

79314000 - Feasibility study

79315000 - Social research services

79411100 - Business development consultancy services

79412000 - Financial management consultancy services

79413000 - Marketing management consultancy services

79417000 - Safety consultancy services

79418000 - Procurement consultancy services

79419000 - Evaluation consultancy services

79421100 - Project-supervision services other than for construction work

79421200 - Project-design services other than for construction work

71311230 - Railway engineering services

71244000 - Calculation of costs, monitoring of costs

71242000 - Project and design preparation, estimation of costs

Indicators

Renewals are available.

https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2026/W23/871760031

RailUK Forums

hwl · 3 Jun 2026

Snow1964 said:
DfT have issued a tender for massive upto £350m for some advice, technical info, consultancy etc. for 3 years from 31 July 2027 to July 2030

Maybe just me, but seems huge sum to cover some gaps in knowledge, and a gravy train for those receiving the funds, that amount is equivalent to 1000 people earning £117k per year. What do others think ?

https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2026/W23/871760031

Not much different to STAR, STARtwo /three... DfT do indeed have some huge knowledge gaps.

Magdalia · 3 Jun 2026

Snow1964 said:
Maybe just me, but seems huge sum to cover some gaps in knowledge, and a gravy train for those receiving the funds, that amount is equivalent to 1000 people earning £117k per year. What do others think ?

I think that £350m over 3 years for advice, technical info and consultancy isn't the equivalent of 1000 people earning £117k per year. Even if all of the contract cost went on labour, which it won't, an employer has to pay National Insurance and pension contributions. I expect there are people here working in consultancy who will be able to expand!

Snow1964 · 3 Jun 2026

Magdalia said:
I think that £350k over 3 years for advice, technical info and consultancy isn't the equivalent of 1000 people earning £117k per year. Even if all of the contract cost went on labour, which it won't, an employer has to pay National Insurance and pension contributions. I expect there are people here working in consultancy who will be able to expand!

Says £350 million, not £350k

PartyOperator · 3 Jun 2026

Not very familiar with rail rates but overall I'd guess that adds up to around 2000 person years.

The Planner · 3 Jun 2026

Rail rates tend to be around the £100-150 per hour off charged, so 2.3 million man hours, or 58,000 weeks at 40 hours a week. If you assume 52 weeks a year for three years so 156, its 370 ish people.

Saying its paying people ludicrous sums is daft, they just get paid their salaries, the rest is profit margin for the companies.

Snow1964 · 3 Jun 2026

The Planner said:
Rail rates tend to be around the £100-150 per hour off charged, so 2.3 million man hours, or 58,000 weeks at 40 hours a week. If you assume 52 weeks a year for three years so 156, its 370 ish people.

Saying its paying people ludicrous sums is daft, they just get paid their salaries, the rest is profit margin for the companies.

Consultancies and professional firms quick rule of thumb, is charge out rate splits : is one third staff cost, one third admin and business overheads, one third to Partners (including profit bonus)

However, if you employ your own people, and train them to same level, then don't really need to pay third category (eg might pay £50 per hour, which is roughly £75k + employers NI and pension), and incur another £20-30 per hour equivalent in HR cost and training

Dr Hoo · 3 Jun 2026

hwl said:
Not much different to STAR, STARtwo /three... DfT do indeed have some huge knowledge gaps.

What is/was STAR please? Commonly seen in re-opening threads standing for ST Andrews Rail link but not this time.

N1 · 3 Jun 2026

Dr Hoo said:
What is/was STAR please? Commonly seen in re-opening threads standing for ST Andrews Rail link but not this time.

It is the Specialist Technical Advisory for Rail framework. Basically the framework for technical consultants. £350m is the expected value of the framework, companies appointed to the framework still have to compete with each other for larger projects, but might be direct awarded smaller ones. If you took a standard construction project not in Rail, e.g. a new office building, you would expect to spend 10-15% of construction cost on design and pre-construction technical services.

Dr Hoo · 3 Jun 2026

Thank you to @NIT100 .

hwl · 4 Jun 2026

Dr Hoo said:
What is/was STAR please? Commonly seen in re-opening threads standing for ST Andrews Rail link but not this time.

STARTwo/ Three / Four are defined in the quote text by the original poster hence i didn't think it needed explicitly stating again in the very next comment.

This entire thread is about the first public announcement of the tender process for STARFour on the procurement portal website, it is already very public on DfT's website and press releases.

A good example of what is covered is the work on NPR so far as part of STARThree.

Harpo · 4 Jun 2026

Snow1964 said:
to cover some gaps in knowledge,

DfT frequently displays gaps in its competence. I’d guarantee that these consultancies don’t address all of them.

hwl · 4 Jun 2026

Harpo said:
DfT frequently displays gaps in its competence. I’d guarantee that these consultancies don’t address all of them.

The main contractors are required to have huge numbers of (smaller) specialist firms as part of the consortia so gaps can be covered quite well.

The biggest issue is DfT acknowleging there is a gap in the first place.

Broucek · 4 Jun 2026

Snow1964 said:
Consultancies and professional firms quick rule of thumb, is charge out rate splits : is one third staff cost, one third admin and business overheads, one third to Partners (including profit bonus)

However, if you employ your own people, and train them to same level, then don't really need to pay third category (eg might pay £50 per hour, which is roughly £75k + employers NI and pension), and incur another £20-30 per hour equivalent in HR cost and training

That's a fair rule of thumb. I'm a consultant (not in this field) and my hourly employement costs (including variable pay, pension, car allowance, benefits and employer NICs) are about 30% of my hourly fee rate.

hozza94 · 4 Jun 2026

Broucek said:
That's a fair rule of thumb. I'm a consultant (not in this field) and my hourly employement costs (including variable pay, pension, car allowance, benefits and employer NICs) are about 30% of my hourly fee rate.

Sounds about right. I am in consultancy as well and my chargeout rate to any clients exceed my pay, in order to cover the overhead to employ me and other company operating cost (office, support staff, expense, etc)

Broucek · 4 Jun 2026

hozza94 said:
Sounds about right. I am in consultancy as well and my chargeout rate to any clients exceed my pay, in order to cover the overhead to employ me and other company operating cost (office, support staff, expense, etc)

Right! And non-chargeable time!

Russel · 4 Jun 2026

There are thousands of members of rail staff that have been in the industry for many, many years with a wealth of knowledge, maybe, just maybe, if we didn't have successive governments, ministers and civil servants who seem to actively be trying to burn bridges and take a wrecking ball to staff moral, we may not have to use external agencies to address gaps in knowledge...

Just a thought.

johnr57 · 4 Jun 2026

And many on here!

Maybe we as a forum pool our resources and submit a bid.

For my part I’m in sales - I’ll do the pitch

Who’s next to offer their contribution?

brad465 · 4 Jun 2026

Time for this one again:

"Consultancy, if you're not part of the solution, there is a lot of money to be made in prolonging the problem."

aavm · 4 Jun 2026

johnr57 said:
And many on here!

Maybe we as a forum pool our resources and submit a bid.

For my part I’m in sales - I’ll do the pitch

Who’s next to offer their contribution?

this!

And @johnr57 should get his first 500K bonus for suggesting it.

JamieL · 4 Jun 2026

I think the expenditure on consulting firms by the public sector is a scandal. Having seen a few examples myself, the end result is normally that much money gets spent and the output is maybe a fancy PowerPoint telling us what we all knew already. The underlying problems though go unfixed because of public sector blockers (finance, contracting...) or industrial base shortfalls.

deltic · 4 Jun 2026

Snow1964 said:
Consultancies and professional firms quick rule of thumb, is charge out rate splits : is one third staff cost, one third admin and business overheads, one third to Partners (including profit bonus)

However, if you employ your own people, and train them to same level, then don't really need to pay third category (eg might pay £50 per hour, which is roughly £75k + employers NI and pension), and incur another £20-30 per hour equivalent in HR cost and training

Most of the big consultancies on this framework are PLCs not partnerships and many operate on surprisingly thin profit margins. Aecom, for example, had a turnover of £771m in year ending October 2025 and made a profit of £36m before tax. As a consultant, I agree that a lot of spending on consultancies is a waste of money. Three major issues, one many government departments have been hollowed out and skills that were once held internally have been lost, two many departments are scared of being responsible for taking decisions so use consultants to cover their back or kick decisions into the long grass and three in some cases consultants have been allowed to effectively run the show and so are incentivised to make work for colleagues.

coppercapped · 4 Jun 2026

Snow1964 said:
DfT have issued a tender for massive upto £350m for some advice, technical info, consultancy etc. for 3 years from 31 July 2027 to July 2030

Maybe just me, but seems huge sum to cover some gaps in knowledge, and a gravy train for those receiving the funds, that amount is equivalent to 1000 people earning £117k per year. What do others think ?

https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2026/W23/871760031

I understood that one of the reasons that Great British Railways was being set up was to distance the DfT from the nitty gritty of railways supervision, so why is such a consultancy contract needed at all?

Unless it is to support the DfT in all its other endeavours — maritime, aviation and, of course, trunk roads.

But, working on the adage that 'The Centre' never gives up power voluntarily, I suspect that it's to enable 'The Centre' to second guess GBR...

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

The Ham · 5 Jun 2026

The Planner said:
Rail rates tend to be around the £100-150 per hour off charged, so 2.3 million man hours, or 58,000 weeks at 40 hours a week. If you assume 52 weeks a year for three years so 156, its 370 ish people.

Saying its paying people ludicrous sums is daft, they just get paid their salaries, the rest is profit margin for the companies.

Indeed, even a fresh graduate in my field (roads and drainage) has a charge out rate of around £50 about 10 years ago (so I'm not giving confidentiality information), so even if they had 1/3 for graduates or similarly paid support staff you'd be looking about an extra 150 to 370 staff.

There was a similar argument being made (from those against HS2) about the business rates that what staff would be being paid circa £100,000, without being aware of charge out rate.

deltic said:
Most of the big consultancies on this framework are PLCs not partnerships and many operate on surprisingly thin profit margins. Aecom, for example, had a turnover of £771m in year ending October 2025 and made a profit of £36m before tax. As a consultant, I agree that a lot of spending on consultancies is a waste of money. Three major issues, one many government departments have been hollowed out and skills that were once held internally have been lost, two many departments are scared of being responsible for taking decisions so use consultants to cover their back or kick decisions into the long grass and three in some cases consultants have been allowed to effectively run the show and so are incentivised to make work for colleagues.

The larger a company the more people you are likely to have in middle management potentially having a greater percentage oftheir hours doing people management than those in smaller companies.

For example a small company maybe one director, one Associate Director, one Principle Engineer, one Senior Engineer, two Engineer's, one Graduate Engineer and two Technicians.

The total amount of people management is far smaller in that setup than one with 5 times the staff and so the more senior staff are more likely to be doing chargeable work.

Also, a small company can more easily share knowledge, even if that's just someone overhearing something being said to others.

The other thing is that I've found is that people are less likely to gate keep knowledge to themselves as the company thinking is, we need more than just one person who is able to do this to cover for holiday, sickness, or the person leaving the company.

Those that want to gate keep soon leave or are made to share.

Nym · 5 Jun 2026

The Ham said:
The larger a company the more people you are likely to have in middle management potentially having a greater percentage oftheir hours doing people management than those in smaller companies.

For example a small company maybe one director, one Associate Director, one Principle Engineer, one Senior Engineer, two Engineer's, one Graduate Engineer and two Technicians.

The total amount of people management is far smaller in that setup than one with 5 times the staff and so the more senior staff are more likely to be doing chargeable work.

Also, a small company can more easily share knowledge, even if that's just someone overhearing something being said to others.

The other thing is that I've found is that people are less likely to gate keep knowledge to themselves as the company thinking is, we need more than just one person who is able to do this to cover for holiday, sickness, or the person leaving the company.

Those that want to gate keep soon leave or are made to share.

Conversely, smaller companies need to spend a higher proportion of their staff-hours handling mandatory compliance paperwork that doesn't scale with number of employees, or doesn't scale well with number of employees. ISO9001 compliance processes, and all of the joyful industry associations and their audits that are so much fun to participate in.

lkpridgeon · 5 Jun 2026

Nym said:
Conversely, smaller companies need to spend a higher proportion of their staff-hours handling mandatory compliance paperwork that doesn't scale with number of employees, or doesn't scale well with number of employees. ISO9001 compliance processes, and all of the joyful industry associations and their audits that are so much fun to participate in.

In a small company most of the compliance processes can (generally) be dealt with, with less staff as there is some scalability thanks to "less moving parts". The issue really comes with the fixed costs of systems designed to help keep said compliance. We got a quote circa 15-20k for an appropriate monitoring system. You're met with either putting in less than ideal processes you know will have to change later or stumping up a not so inconsiderate sum for something long term. ISO is a good example, we're currently in the process of obtaining 27001 & 2 amongst some others, it's looking like about half a person year plus other costs (audit, pen-testing, software). The cost is about equivalent to hiring an extra person that could otherwise go on technical delivery. That cost is ultimately passed on, roughly 10-15% of contract value being management and compliance.

The 3x charge rate is roughly equivalent to what I've seen too so I think it's quite consistent. But then again, I've seen charge out rates at 10x hourly in some multinationals.

You plan to capacity, I have in the past assumed 70% of active work hours are productive. 30% is admin, training and internal meetings. Of that 70%, roughly half is billable.

I was talking with someone the other day and we had a discussion basically agreeing that a team of 4 can produce nearly as much as a team of 8. As @The Ham identifies. With team growth you need to manage the team more and roles become more fixed. Planning becomes more important and you start to pair people off for certain tasks to ensure knowledge transfer which otherwise happens naturally in smaller teams.

deltic · 6 Jun 2026

lkpridgeon said:
You plan to capacity, I have in the past assumed 70% of active work hours are productive. 30% is admin, training and internal meetings. Of that 70%, roughly half is billable.

If you are running a consultancy business with just 35% of paid time billable you are in deep trouble - many operate at 80%+ with most junior staff at 90-95% or around 1,700 billable hours a year.

lkpridgeon · 6 Jun 2026

deltic said:
If you are running a consultancy business with just 35% of paid time billable you are in deep trouble - many operate at 80%+ with most junior staff at 90-95% or around 1,700 billable hours a year.

For areas I have worked, it's 50/50 split between internal development and external consultancy. So 70-80% is about right if you don't have the split. I wouldn't expect a jr to be 90% productive as they should have training time.

Broucek · 6 Jun 2026

deltic said:
If you are running a consultancy business with just 35% of paid time billable you are in deep trouble - many operate at 80%+ with most junior staff at 90-95% or around 1,700 billable hours a year.

Depends how much you charge...

My target is around that but expectations are higher for lower grades where there are not so many other requirements.

It also depends whether the model is working full time on a single project or multiple projects at a time

ACDC · 6 Jun 2026

I'm sure Palantir can do this way more efficiently.

Dft tender £350m for advice and consultancy etc

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