Advisory Partners Wanted for Clean Energy Transition
A new advisory contract aims to bring in specialist expertise to steer the UK's clean energy transition, signalling rising demand for strategic support.
A new advisory contract aims to bring in specialist expertise to steer the UK's clean energy transition, signalling rising demand for strategic support.
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Great British Energy has begun sounding out the advisory market for support with the UK's clean energy transition, signalling a fresh wave of public-sector demand for specialist expertise.
Published on 3rd December 2025, a prior information notice titled Advisory Support for Clean Energy confirms that Great British Energy is seeking technical and professional advisory services to support its strategic objectives in the UK's clean energy transition. The organisation plans to host a virtual Market Engagement Event to discuss the opportunity with interested suppliers.
The notice offers no further breakdown of disciplines or contract structure, but the language points to a wide remit. Rather than a single project, the advisory support is described in terms of Great British Energy's overall strategic role in the transition, indicating that services may cut across several areas of its work, though these are not yet set out in the notice.
By flagging its plans ahead of a formal procurement, Great British Energy is following a pattern seen in other complex public-sector programmes: use an early notice to test assumptions, gauge capacity and refine scope before tenders are drafted.
Two earlier notices help to sketch the wider context. In August 2025, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero published a prior information notice for GBE Leadership and Culture Development. That notice set out Great British Energy's search for leadership development and organisational culture services, focused on collaboration and values-driven behaviours and favouring bespoke programmes over predefined products.
Then, in September 2025, Great British Energy - Nuclear issued a prior information notice for a Delivery Partner to manage and coordinate a Small Modular Reactor project, starting with preliminary market engagement. Together, these procurements point to an organisation building its internal capability while relying on specialist partners for both culture change and major project delivery.
The clean-energy advisory support now on the table adds a third strand. While details have still to be fleshed out, the combination of cultural, nuclear and strategic advisory requirements suggests that Great British Energy expects to work through a web of professional advisers as it defines and executes its remit.
The planned virtual Market Engagement Event is also a sign of how mainstream early dialogue has become in UK public procurement, especially where professional services are involved.
In June 2025, NHS Shared Business Services Limited used a prior information notice for a new Public Sector Construction Consultancy framework to invite potential suppliers to help define both procurement strategy and service specification across a range of professional service lots.
Later that month, the Royal Borough of Greenwich announced plans for an open framework covering alternative education provision and outreach support. Its prior information notice asked providers to take part in soft market testing and a market engagement event, including discussion of innovative approaches for pupils who need alternative education and reintegration support.
In July 2025, Kent County Council, acting through its procurement services, set out plans for a five-lot Digital Transformation Framework to support public-sector organisations with operational modernisation. Here again, supplier engagement on market capability and innovative solutions was placed at the heart of the exercise.
By October 2025, Westmorland and Furness Council was preparing a closed Professional Services Framework spanning property, civils and infrastructure, and planning, growth and sustainability, and inviting registered consultants to support a range of project-related work.
In the same period, the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime sought feedback from construction suppliers on a refreshed professional services framework for the Metropolitan Police Service. Its October 2025 market engagement notice was explicit that supplier input would help shape the framework's structure and scope.
SCAPE Procure Limited added a further example in November 2025, when it outlined a UK-wide Professional Services and Development Framework and scheduled a programme of events and discussions in advance of the formal procurement.
Against that backdrop, Great British Energy's decision to convene a virtual event before issuing its advisory tender is firmly in the mainstream. For suppliers, it will be the key forum to hear how the organisation frames its strategic objectives, and to signal where the market can add most value.
The content of the new notice – advisory support centred on the UK's clean energy transition – also reflects a broader shift in what public bodies are buying. Across the UK, frameworks and contracts are emerging that focus as much on design, planning and behavioural change as on physical infrastructure.
In November 2025, Kent County Council, trading as Laser, signalled plans for a Flexible Energy Procurement Framework covering the supply of gas and electricity to public-sector organisations. Alongside commodity purchasing, that framework explicitly seeks innovative solutions for net zero energy.
Healthcare has similar dynamics. In September 2025, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, acting through the North of England NHS Commercial Procurement Collaborative, launched market engagement for Decarbonisation and Energy Infrastructure support. The aim is to help NHS and wider public-sector bodies develop and deliver Green Plans, and to provide a procurement route for estates decarbonisation and energy infrastructure services.
Local authorities are also looking for advisory-led approaches. In September 2025, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fuham advertised a Domestic Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy Retrofits Service to give able-to-pay residents end-to-end support with upgrades. Later that month, ateb Housing Group Ltd set out plans for an ateb Renewables Framework, seeking a panel of service providers to deliver retrofit and decarbonisation works aligned with its net zero targets.
Digital tools are part of the same picture. In November 2025, The Energy & Utility Skills Group issued a market engagement opportunity for a web-based platform serving the energy, water and waste sectors. The goal is to enhance engagement and support the UK's energy transition – a reminder that data and communication infrastructure now sit alongside engineering consultancy in the clean-energy advisory mix.
Outside the UK, recent notices show energy utilities investing heavily in expert advice. In July 2025, Botswana Power Corporation sought consulting support for project management and contract supervision on battery energy storage systems at Jwaneng and Mmadinare. In September 2025, Grenada's Ministry of Climate Resilience, The Environment and Renewable Energy advertised for a Social Specialist for CEGEB, a World Bank-funded programme on efficient and green-energy buildings.
And in November 2025, the Guyana Energy Agency released a notice for Renewable Energy Consulting Services, seeking a study of renewable hosting capacity on its distribution system and the development of a distribution interconnection code. The common thread is that public bodies are buying expertise in engineering, social impact and system planning as a core component of the shift to cleaner power.
For Great British Energy, the immediate next step is its virtual Market Engagement Event. The prior information notice sets out the headline requirement – technical and professional advisory services linked to strategic objectives in the UK's clean energy transition – but leaves the detail open for discussion.
That mirrors the approach taken in the leadership and culture development procurement flagged in August 2025, which stressed meaningful conversations and bespoke programmes over predefined products. Suppliers attending the new advisory event can expect questions not only about technical capability, but also about how partners will work with the organisation and help embed its values and ways of working.
If Great British Energy proceeds to establish an advisory contract or framework, it will coexist with project-specific arrangements such as the Small Modular Reactor delivery partner, creating multiple routes for external expertise.
More broadly, the clustering of net zero and decarbonisation-focused consultancy and framework notices in the second half of 2025 – spanning energy procurement, NHS estates, housing retrofit and international grid studies – suggests that advisory capacity is now central to the clean-energy agenda. The Advisory Support for Clean Energy notice is a concise document for now, but the work it foreshadows could play a significant role in how this public-sector energy organisation works with its supply chain.
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