Data collection and collation services

Pick 72314000 when the contract's main job is to gather data and pull it together into one dataset, rather than to build software, run statistical analysis, or simply key in records that already exist on paper.

The boundaries that trip contracting authorities are all next door. Data capture (72313000) is the act of getting data off a source medium, often automated reading or digitisation, while collection-and-collation adds the step of consolidating disparate sources into a coherent whole. Data entry (72312000) is the manual keying of known records. Data analysis (72316000) is where interpretation and modelling live; reserve that code for contracts whose accepted output is findings, not an assembled dataset.

Where a single contract spans gathering, cleaning and analysing, set the primary CPV code by the dominant deliverable. If the authority is paying chiefly for a consolidated, validated dataset it can hand to its own analysts, 72314000 is the right pick. If the accepted output is the analytical conclusion, look to 72316000 instead.

Winners under 72314000 are data-operations firms, research and survey houses, and specialist outfits that own a pipeline for pulling data from instruments, registries or external feeds and reconciling it. The work rewards a demonstrable method for validation and provenance far more than a generic software catalogue, so lead your bid with how you guarantee the data is complete and reconciled, not with headcount.

With 875 awards over the full window (TED 2009-2026), this is a steady, recurring line of work rather than an occasional one, and the underlying data usually has to be refreshed, so the need recurs rather than ending at handover. That recurrence rewards incumbents who already understand the sources. Several of the historical awards run as framework or multi-year service contracts, which favours getting onto the framework first, then competing on call-offs.

Expect competition from two directions: data-analytics suppliers bidding under 72316000 who fold collection into a wider scope, and geospatial or sector-specialist firms arriving from their own domains. Where it nets out: an authority buying under this code wants a dataset it can trust without re-checking, so provenance, validation discipline and source coverage beat a low day rate. Poland, France and Germany account for the bulk of historical activity (TED 2009-2026), so a credible multi-country delivery footprint helps.