UK Find a Tender Scraper

Extract public UK procurement notices from Find a Tender for bid monitoring, sales intelligence, award tracking, and market research.

What does UK Find a Tender Scraper do?

UK Find a Tender Scraper collects public notices from the official UK Find a Tender service.

It reads search result pages and notice detail pages.

It saves one dataset item per procurement notice.

It is designed for high-value UK public procurement monitoring.

Typical records include notice identifiers, titles, buyers, deadlines, values, CPV codes, locations, summaries, suppliers, award data, source URLs, and document links.

Who is it for?

This actor is for B2G sales teams.

It is for bid managers.

It is for procurement analysts.

It is for tender monitoring teams.

It is for consultants tracking public sector demand.

It is for SaaS teams selling into central government, councils, NHS bodies, universities, and utilities.

Why use it?

Find a Tender is the UK service for higher-value public procurement notices.

Manual monitoring is repetitive.

Official pages are public but not convenient for automated analysis.

This actor turns public pages into structured data.

You can run it daily to find new opportunities.

You can run it weekly to monitor awards.

You can enrich CRM accounts with buying signals.

How it works

The actor uses HTTP requests and Cheerio HTML parsing.

It does not require a browser.

It does not require a Find a Tender account.

It fetches search pages first.

It can then fetch each notice detail page.

Detail fetching enriches records with document links, CPV-like codes, supplier text, and award text when those details are visible.

Data you can extract

Field	Description
noticeId	Find a Tender notice identifier
title	Notice title
buyer	Buyer or contracting authority
publicationDate	Publication date text
deadline	Submission, closing, or engagement deadline
noticeType	Notice type or stage
noticeStatus	Inferred open or awarded status when possible
value	Contract or total value text
cpv	CPV/category codes found on details
categories	Category or section headings
location	Contract location
description	Search summary or page description
supplier	Supplier name when present
awardData	Award-related text when present
sourceUrl	Original notice URL
documentLinks	Public document/download links

How much does it cost to scrape UK Find a Tender?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

There is a small start charge for each run: $0.005.

There is a per-result charge for each saved notice. The default BRONZE tier is approximately $0.000051827 per notice. Other Apify tiers use the configured tiered result prices: FREE $0.000059601, SILVER $0.000040425, GOLD $0.000031096, PLATINUM $0.000020731, and DIAMOND $0.000014512 per notice.

Example: a run that saves 100 notices costs about $0.0102 at the BRONZE tier before any platform-specific taxes or account-level billing adjustments: $0.005 start + 100 × $0.000051827.

Use a low maxResults value for first tests.

Increase maxResults only after you confirm the output matches your workflow.

Input options

keywords searches and filters procurement notices by text.

noticeStatus keeps all notices, open notices, or closed/awarded notices.

noticeTypes lets you keep notices whose type text contains values such as Award, Tender, UK4, or F03.

buyer filters buyer or authority names.

cpvCode filters parsed CPV/category text.

dateFrom and dateTo filter parsed publication dates inclusively. Use YYYY-MM-DD.

maxResults controls the number of dataset rows.

fetchDetails controls whether the actor opens each detail page.

startUrls accepts Find a Tender search URLs or direct notice URLs.

Example input

{
  "keywords": "software",
  "noticeStatus": "all",
  "noticeTypes": ["Award", "Tender"],
  "maxResults": 10,
  "fetchDetails": true,
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Search/Results" }
  ]
}

Example output

{
  "noticeId": "056146-2026",
  "title": "Maintenance of Pharmacy Robot",
  "buyer": "NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership-Procurement Services",
  "publicationDate": "15 June 2026, 12:27pm",
  "deadline": null,
  "noticeType": "F03: Contract award notice",
  "noticeStatus": "Awarded",
  "value": "£65,513.30",
  "cpv": [],
  "categories": [],
  "location": "UKL14 - South West Wales",
  "description": "This contract covers the maintenance and servicing...",
  "supplier": "Becton Dickinson Dispensing UK Limited",
  "awardData": "Supplier: Becton Dickinson Dispensing UK Limited",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/056146-2026?origin=SearchResults&p=1",
  "documentLinks": []
}

Step-by-step guide

1. Open the actor on Apify.

2. Enter keywords such as software, construction, cloud, or security.

3. Choose whether to keep all notices or focus on open opportunities.

4. Add optional notice type filters.

5. Set maxResults to a small value for the first run.

6. Keep fetchDetails enabled if you need supplier or document links.

7. Start the run.

8. Export results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or via API.

Start URL workflows

Use a search result URL when you want the actor to collect notices from search pages.

Use a notice URL when you want to enrich one known notice.

You can combine multiple start URLs.

The actor deduplicates visited page URLs during a run.

Bid monitoring workflow

Run the actor every morning.

Filter by terms related to your product or service.

Send results to a CRM or spreadsheet.

Review deadlines and buyer names.

Assign owners to qualified opportunities.

Track repeated buyers over time.

Award intelligence workflow

Set notice type filters to award-related terms.

Review suppliers and values.

Identify competitors that repeatedly win contracts.

Use buyer names and award data to plan renewal outreach.

Monitor framework and call-off activity.

Integrations

Use Apify datasets to export CSV or Excel.

Use the Apify API to pull JSON into a data warehouse.

Use Zapier or Make to send new notices to Slack.

Use webhooks to notify bid teams after each scheduled run.

Use Google Sheets integrations for lightweight monitoring lists.

Use CRM enrichment workflows to attach procurement signals to accounts.

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/uk-find-a-tender-scraper').call({
  keywords: 'software',
  maxResults: 10,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('MY-APIFY-TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/uk-find-a-tender-scraper').call(run_input={
    'keywords': 'software',
    'maxResults': 10,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~uk-find-a-tender-scraper/runs?token=MY-APIFY-TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"keywords":"software","maxResults":10}'

MCP usage

You can use this actor from Apify MCP tools.

Claude Code MCP URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-find-a-tender-scraper

Claude Code add command:

$claude mcp add apify-uk-find-a-tender https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-find-a-tender-scraper

Claude Desktop MCP URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-find-a-tender-scraper

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-uk-find-a-tender": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/uk-find-a-tender-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompt:

"Run the UK Find a Tender Scraper for cyber security notices and summarize open opportunities closing this month."

Another prompt:

"Find recent award notices for cloud software and list winning suppliers, values, and buyers."

Tips for better results

Use specific keywords.

Try buyer names for account-based monitoring.

Use notice type filters to focus on tenders or awards.

Keep fetchDetails enabled for richer output.

Increase maxResults gradually.

Schedule recurring runs for monitoring.

Deduplicate downstream by noticeId.

Troubleshooting

If you get fewer results than expected, remove filters and try again.

If document links are empty, the notice may not expose public attachment links in the parsed page.

If supplier data is empty, the notice may be an opportunity rather than an award.

If keyword filtering feels broad, use more specific terms or filter downstream.

Limitations

The actor extracts public data only.

It does not sign in.

It does not bypass access controls.

The site may use different templates for different notice types.

Some fields are optional and appear only when Find a Tender publishes them.

Date fields are currently stored as source text to preserve official wording.

Legality

Find a Tender publishes public procurement notices.

You are responsible for using the data lawfully.

Respect applicable procurement, privacy, and database rules.

Do not use the actor to overload the source website.

Use reasonable result limits and schedules.

Related scrapers

Contracts Finder UK Procurement Scraper: https://apify.com/automation-lab/contracts-finder-uk-procurement-scraper

TED Europa Tenders Scraper: https://apify.com/automation-lab/ted-europa-tenders-scraper

Use this actor when your workflow specifically targets the UK Find a Tender portal.

Use Contracts Finder for lower-value UK opportunities listed on Contracts Finder.

Use TED for EU-wide procurement monitoring.

FAQ

Is a Find a Tender account required?

No. The actor uses public search and notice pages.

Can I scrape award notices?

Yes. Award notice fields such as supplier, value, and award text are saved when visible.

Can I monitor one buyer?

Yes. Use the buyer input or filter exported data by buyer name.

Can I get documents?

The actor saves public document/download links that appear on notice pages.

Can I run it every day?

Yes. Daily runs are a good fit for bid monitoring.

Does it use a browser?

No. It uses HTTP and HTML parsing for efficient runs.

What if the official page layout changes?

The actor uses resilient selectors, but a major source-site redesign may require an update.

Changelog

Initial version extracts public Find a Tender search and notice data.

Support

Open an issue on Apify if a public notice URL fails or a field is missing from pages where it is clearly visible.