UK Tenders Scraper: Contracts Finder + Find a Tender

Published by Civitab. Apify Store ID: civitab/uk-tenders-ocds.

Get UK public sector tenders, contract awards and pipeline notices from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender in one clean, consistent table. The Actor reads both services' official OCDS APIs (Open Contracting Data Standard), so there is no browser, no login and no proxy involved. The data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

What does UK Tenders Scraper do?

• Queries the official Contracts Finder OCDS search API and the official Find a Tender OCDS API for any date window you choose.
• Returns one row per published notice with the same fields for both sources: title, description, buyer, CPV codes and descriptions, value range, currency, deadline, regions (names and NUTS codes), delivery postcodes, awarded suppliers (with Companies House numbers where published), SME/VCSE suitability flags, document links and a link to the official notice page.
• Lets you filter by notice stage (planning, tender, award), keywords, CPV code prefixes, minimum/maximum value, region and buyer name.
• Monitor mode (onlyNew): schedule it daily and each run returns only notices it has not already delivered to you for the same filters.
• Raw mode: get the full OCDS release instead of the flat table, with personal contact data removed.
• Removes personal data: contact names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers are stripped, including from free-text descriptions and raw mode. Organisation street addresses are reduced to region and country. Organisation names and Companies House numbers are kept.

Why use it?

• Two sources, one schema. Contracts Finder and Find a Tender publish overlapping but different notices. This Actor merges them so you don't maintain two integrations.
• Stage filtering you can trust. Stage filtering is done on each release's own tags rather than through the APIs' stages parameter. In the developer's tests on 22 Oct 2026, Find a Tender's stages=tender returned only 10 of the 67 tender notices published that day, and a comma-separated stage list returned none.
• Resilient. Each API page is retried up to 6 times with exponential backoff, and Retry-After is honoured on HTTP 429/5xx. One failed page does not end the run, and every run writes a summary with the request success rate and any failed pages.
• Cost control. You pay per notice saved. maxItems and Apify's "Max cost per run" both cap spend.

Use cases

• Daily tender alerts for your CPV codes, region or keywords, delivered to e-mail, Slack or a spreadsheet through Apify integrations.
• Sales prospecting: find buyers that regularly procure what you sell.
• Competitor tracking: see which suppliers win which contracts, from which buyers and for what stated value (award notices).
• Pipeline planning: watch planning/pipeline notices to see upcoming procurements before they open.
• Market sizing and research: export weeks or months of notices for analysis.

Who is it for?

• Bid hunters and bid managers who need a reliable daily feed of new UK opportunities.
• Contractors and suppliers of any size, including SMEs looking for notices flagged as SME-suitable.
• Govcon / public procurement consultants who monitor several sectors or clients at once.
• Market researchers and analysts studying UK public spending, buyers and suppliers.

How to use it

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console and go to the Input tab.
2. Choose Sources: Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, or both (default: both).
3. Choose Notice stages: Tender (open opportunities) is selected by default. Add Planning and/or Award if you want pipeline or awarded contracts.
4. Set the date window: Days back (default 3), or a fixed Date from / Date to.
5. Optionally narrow results with Keywords, CPV code prefixes, Min/Max value (GBP), Region and Buyer name contains.
6. Set Max results to cap the number of notices (and the cost) per run.
7. Click Start. Results appear in the Output tab, with an Overview table and an Awards & suppliers view.
8. For alerts, turn on Only new notices (monitor mode) and add a Schedule (for example, daily at 07:00).

Input example

IT and software tenders over £100,000 published in the last 7 days, from both sources:

{
  "sources": ["CF", "FTS"],
  "stages": ["tender"],
  "daysBack": 7,
  "cpvCodes": ["72", "48"],
  "minValue": 100000,
  "maxItems": 500
}

Daily monitor for NHS award notices in London:

{
  "stages": ["award"],
  "daysBack": 2,
  "buyerName": "NHS",
  "region": "London",
  "onlyNew": true,
  "maxItems": 200
}

Input fields

Field	Default	Description
sources	["CF","FTS"]	CF = Contracts Finder, FTS = Find a Tender
stages	["tender"]	planning, tender, award. Contract and implementation releases count as award.
daysBack	3	Look-back window in days (1-3650). Ignored if dateFrom is set.
dateFrom / dateTo	–	YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS (UTC). Contracts Finder filters by published date, Find a Tender by last-updated date. dateTo defaults to now.
keywords	[]	Keep notices whose title or description contains ANY keyword (case-insensitive).
cpvCodes	–	CPV code prefixes, e.g. 72 (IT services), 45 (construction work), 45000000.
minValue / maxValue	–	GBP. A notice is kept if its stated value range overlaps your range. Notices without any stated value are excluded when a value filter is set.
region	–	Exact region name (e.g. London, Scotland, North East, East of England) or a NUTS code (e.g. UKM, UKI3; includes the codes under it). Separate several with commas.
buyerName	–	Substring of the buyer name, e.g. NHS, Council, Ministry of Defence.
maxItems	50	Maximum notices per run (1-1,000,000). Caps cost.
outputMode	flat	flat = one clean row per notice; raw = full OCDS release with personal data removed.
onlyNew	false	Skip notices already delivered to you in earlier runs with the same filters.
maxPagesPerSource	200	Safety cap on API pages per source (100 releases per page).
requestDelaySecs	1.0	Delay between API calls (0-10 s).

Output example

Two real records, trimmed. The first is a Find a Tender open tender from a local run on 22 Oct 2026; the second is a Find a Tender award notice taken from saved API responses (20 Oct 2026). Descriptions are shortened.

[
  {
    "ocid": "ocds-h6vhtk-078e63",
    "releaseId": "100217-2026",
    "noticeId": "100217-2026",
    "source": "FTS",
    "stage": "tender",
    "tags": ["tender"],
    "title": "DCC Wastewater Sludge Cake Haulage",
    "description": "Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) is seeking suitably qualified and experienced suppliers to provide wastewater sludge cake haulage services across four Lots: ...",
    "status": "active",
    "procurementMethod": "Competitive flexible procedure",
    "mainCategory": "services",
    "cpvCodes": ["90513700"],
    "cpvDescriptions": ["Sludge transport services"],
    "buyerOrg": "Dwr Cymru Cyfyngedig",
    "buyerId": "GB-COH-02366777",
    "regions": [],
    "regionCodes": [],
    "deliveryPostcodes": [],
    "valueLow": 1000000.0,
    "valueHigh": 6000000.0,
    "currency": "GBP",
    "publishedDate": "2026-10-22T21:55:44+01:00",
    "deadline": "2026-11-18T23:59:00+00:00",
    "awardDate": null,
    "suppliers": [],
    "smeSuitable": null,
    "vcseSuitable": null,
    "noticeUrl": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/100217-2026",
    "license": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-23T02:03:54+00:00"
  },
  {
    "ocid": "ocds-h6vhtk-078c51",
    "releaseId": "099219-2026",
    "source": "FTS",
    "stage": "award",
    "tags": ["award", "contract"],
    "title": "Enabling Works - Kettering General Hospital",
    "status": "complete",
    "procurementMethod": "Below threshold - limited competition",
    "mainCategory": "works",
    "cpvCodes": ["45000000"],
    "cpvDescriptions": ["Construction work"],
    "buyerOrg": "West Northamptonshire Council",
    "regionCodes": ["UKC", "UKD", "UKE", "UKF", "UKG", "UKH", "UKI", "UKJ", "UKK"],
    "valueLow": 28999.22,
    "valueHigh": 28999.22,
    "currency": "GBP",
    "publishedDate": "2026-10-20T17:58:56+01:00",
    "awardDate": "2026-09-23T00:00:00+01:00",
    "suppliers": [
      { "name": "SEMILONG SERVICES LIMITED", "companiesHouseNumber": "06842550", "scale": "sme" }
    ],
    "noticeUrl": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/099219-2026"
  }
]

Contracts Finder notices often also carry deliveryPostcodes (the work location) and the smeSuitable / vcseSuitable flags. For example, a Ministry of Defence demolition tender from the same saved data has "deliveryPostcodes": ["B37 7ES"], "smeSuitable": true, "vcseSuitable": false.

Each run also writes an OUTPUT record to the run's key-value store with items per source, the stop reason, releases scanned, duplicates, filtered and already-seen counts, requestSuccessRatePct, retries, failed pages, HTTP status counts and the charged events.

Output fields (flat mode)

Field	Type	Description
ocid	string	OCDS procurement ID. One procurement can have several notices (e.g. tender, then award).
releaseId	string	ID of this specific published release (notice).
noticeId	string	Notice ID used in the official notice URL.
source	string	CF (Contracts Finder) or FTS (Find a Tender).
stage	string	planning, tender or award (contract/implementation releases are reported as award).
tags	array	Original OCDS release tags.
title	string | null	Notice title.
description	string | null	Notice description (e-mails and phone numbers redacted).
status	string | null	Tender status as published (e.g. active, complete).
procurementMethod	string | null	Procurement method details as published.
mainCategory	string | null	goods, services or works, when given.
cpvCodes	array	CPV codes found on the notice.
cpvDescriptions	array	Descriptions matching cpvCodes.
buyerOrg	string | null	Buying organisation name.
buyerId	string | null	Buyer identifier as published (e.g. GB-COH-...).
regions	array	Delivery regions; NUTS1 codes are converted to names (e.g. UKI → London).
regionCodes	array	Delivery region values as published (NUTS codes on Find a Tender).
deliveryPostcodes	array	Postcodes of the work location, when published.
valueLow / valueHigh	number | null	Lowest and highest positive amounts stated on the notice (tender, lots, awards, contracts).
currency	string | null	Currency of the stated values (usually GBP).
publishedDate	string | null	Date the notice was published.
releaseDate	string | null	Date of this release.
deadline	string | null	Tender period end date (submission deadline), when given.
awardDate	string | null	Earliest award or contract-signed date, for award notices.
suppliers	array	Awarded suppliers: name, companiesHouseNumber, scale (e.g. sme, large).
smeSuitable / vcseSuitable	boolean | null	Suitability flags, mainly on Contracts Finder.
documents	array	Document links: type, description, url.
noticeUrl	string | null	Link to the official notice page.
license	string	Open Government Licence attribution.
scrapedAt	string	When the record was produced (UTC).

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: $0.0025 per notice saved to your dataset (event notice). That is $2.50 per 1,000 notices.

• You pay only for notices that land in your dataset. Notices removed by your filters, duplicates and (in monitor mode) notices you already received are not charged.
• raw mode costs the same per notice.
• Apify's standard synthetic "Actor start" event ($0.00005 per run) also applies.
• maxItems and Apify's Max cost per run both cap spend. When the budget is reached, the Actor stops cleanly and tells you in the status message.

Worked examples:

What you run	Notices	Cost
Default run (maxItems 50)	50	$0.125
A filtered daily alert that returns 20 notices	20	$0.05
1,000 notices	1,000	$2.50
7 days, all stages, both sources (3,133 notices in the developer's test run)	3,133	about $7.83
30 days, all stages, both sources (12,334 notices in the developer's test run)	12,334	about $30.84

A daily monitor that returns 20 new notices a day costs about $1.50 per month (30 × $0.05).

Integrations and export

Like any Apify Actor, you can:

• Export results from the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML.
• Use the Apify API to start runs and fetch results from your own code.
• Schedule runs (e.g. daily) in Apify Console. Combine with onlyNew for alerts.
• Trigger webhooks when a run finishes, and connect results to tools such as Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier or Make through Apify integrations.

Limitations and data source notes

• Data window. Contracts Finder is filtered by published date, Find a Tender by last-updated date, so a Find a Tender notice published earlier but updated in your window can appear.
• Missing values. Some notices have no value, region, deadline or CPV code because the buyer didn't provide one. The Actor never guesses. With a value filter set, notices without a value are excluded.
• Value range. valueLow/valueHigh are the lowest and highest positive amounts stated anywhere on the notice (overall value, lots, awards, contracts). They are not an estimate.
• Region filter uses exact names (case-insensitive), so East does not match North East; use the full name (East of England) or a NUTS code. A NUTS code matches itself and the codes nested under it (UKM matches UKM82), and a UK region name also matches notices that only carry NUTS codes inside that region. Region data comes from delivery addresses as published by the buyer.
• Monitor mode remembers delivered notices per filter combination, in a named key-value store in your Apify account (uk-tenders-ocds-monitor), saved after every page. Changing the filters starts a new history. The history keeps the most recent 200,000 notice IDs per filter combination.
• Volume caps. By default each source reads at most 200 pages (20,000 releases) per run; raise maxPagesPerSource for very long windows.
• No attachments. Documents are returned as links; files are not downloaded.
• Notices vs. procurements. Each published notice (release) appears once per run. One procurement (ocid) can produce several notices over time.

Legal and data note

• Both sources are official UK government services. Contracts Finder and Find a Tender (both run by the UK Cabinet Office) publish this content under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which permits copying, adaptation and commercial use with attribution. Every record includes a license field with the attribution: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• The Actor uses only the public, anonymous OCDS read APIs. It does not log in, scrape HTML or solve CAPTCHAs. Requests are throttled (1 second apart by default) and use a descriptive User-Agent.
• Personal contact data (names, e-mails, phones) is removed before saving.
• This Actor is not affiliated with the UK Government, Crown Commercial Service or Cabinet Office. Always check the official notice before you bid.

FAQ

Do I need an API key or an account on Contracts Finder or Find a Tender? No. Both OCDS read APIs are anonymous. You only need an Apify account.

Why two sources? Contracts Finder covers lower-value contracts in England and central government. Find a Tender covers UK-wide higher-value contracts and, since the Procurement Act 2023 came into force (February 2025), carries most new tender, pipeline and award notices. Using both gives the widest coverage.

How fresh is the data? Each run queries the official APIs live, so you get whatever is published at that moment.

How do I get daily alerts? Set your filters, turn on onlyNew, and create a daily schedule. Add a webhook or integration (e.g. Slack, e-mail, Google Sheets) to receive the new notices.

Can I see who won a contract? Yes. Select the award stage. Award notices fill suppliers (name, Companies House number where published, and scale) and awardDate. Use the Awards & suppliers view in the Output tab.

Can I get the full OCDS JSON? Yes. Set outputMode to raw. Personal contact data is still removed, the source is added as _source and the licence attribution as _license.

Will I get duplicates? Not within a run: each published notice appears once. A single procurement can have several notices over time (for example a tender notice and later an award notice); both are returned because they are different notices.

Why do some notices have no value or region? The buyer didn't publish one. The fields are left empty rather than estimated.

How much will a run cost? $0.0025 per notice saved. Set maxItems or Apify's "Max cost per run" to cap it; for example, maxItems: 400 can never cost more than $1.00 in notice charges.

Is this legal to use commercially? The data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which allows commercial reuse with attribution. Each record carries the attribution in its license field.