diff --git a/.changeset/whole-buckets-fix.md b/.changeset/whole-buckets-fix.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..87097859f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/whole-buckets-fix.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@backstage/plugin-techdocs-node': patch
+---
+
+Updated the error message thrown by parseReferenceAnnotation to reflect the annotation value passed as an argument rather than in correctly assuming location.
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.test.ts b/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.test.ts
index 33f4018f47..aa1aa69d30 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.test.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.test.ts
@@ -113,9 +113,12 @@ describe('parseReferenceAnnotation', () => {
   });
 
   it('should throw error without annotation', () => {
+    const logMsgRegex = new RegExp(
+      `No ${TECHDOCS_ANNOTATION} annotation provided`,
+    );
     expect(() => {
       parseReferenceAnnotation(TECHDOCS_ANNOTATION, entityBase);
-    }).toThrow(/No location annotation/);
+    }).toThrow(logMsgRegex);
   });
 
   it('should throw error with bad annotation', () => {
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.ts b/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.ts
index 67bb862c62..f1655aa9a6 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs-node/src/helpers.ts
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ export const parseReferenceAnnotation = (
   const annotation = entity.metadata.annotations?.[annotationName];
   if (!annotation) {
     throw new InputError(
-      `No location annotation provided in entity: ${entity.metadata.name}`,
+      `No ${annotationName} annotation provided in entity: ${entity.metadata.name}`,
     );
   }