# UK Tenders Monitor - Contracts Finder & Find a Tender Alerts (`datadeltas/uk-tenders-monitor`) Actor

Monitor UK public sector tenders and contract awards. Keyword, CPV, buyer and value filters over the official Contracts Finder and Find a Tender OCDS APIs. Emits only NEW notices on each run - schedule it and feed your bid pipeline.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/datadeltas/uk-tenders-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Daniel Matthee](https://apify.com/datadeltas) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $15.00 / 1,000 tender detecteds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## UK Tenders Monitor — Contracts Finder & Find a Tender Alerts

Never miss a UK public sector opportunity again. This monitor watches **both
official UK procurement portals** — Contracts Finder (below-threshold and
wider public sector) and Find a Tender (high-value notices under the
Procurement Act) — through their official OCDS APIs, and emits **only the
notices that are new since your last run**, filtered to exactly what your bid
team cares about: your keywords, your CPV codes, your buyers, your deal size.

Schedule it hourly or daily and pipe the dataset into Slack, email, Google
Sheets or your CRM with any Apify integration. First run backfills the last
14 days (configurable); every run after that is a clean delta — no duplicates,
deduplicated by OCID across both portals.

### Example output record

```json
{
  "ocid": "ocds-h6vhtk-06ef08",
  "source": "find-a-tender",
  "title": "Contract for the Purchase of up to 10 x Highways Chassis Cab Vehicles",
  "buyer": "City & County of Swansea",
  "valueGBP": 500000.0,
  "cpvCodes": ["34000000"],
  "publishedDate": "2026-08-30T16:25:00+01:00",
  "deadlineDate": "2026-09-30T12:00:00+01:00",
  "stage": "tender",
  "region": "UKL18",
  "url": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/082396-2026",
  "detectedAt": "2026-08-31T01:02:55Z"
}
```

`stage` is `tender` (open opportunity) or `award` (contract awarded — who won,
for how much). `region` is the delivery region as published: a name on
Contracts Finder (e.g. "London"), a NUTS/ITL code on Find a Tender (e.g.
"UKL18"). `valueGBP` is the net stated value when the buyer publishes one.

### Input options

| Field | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| `keywords` | array | `[]` (all) | Case-insensitive match against title AND description, e.g. `["software development", "penetration testing"]` |
| `cpvCodes` | array | `[]` (all) | CPV prefixes — `"72"` catches every IT services code |
| `buyerNameContains` | string | — | e.g. `"NHS"`, `"Council"`, `"Ministry of Defence"` |
| `minValueGBP` / `maxValueGBP` | integer | — | Value band. Notices without a published value are excluded when a bound is set |
| `stages` | array | `["tender","award"]` | `tender` = open opportunities, `award` = contract awards |
| `sinceDays` | integer | `14` | Backfill window on the first run; scan window on every run |
| `maxItems` | integer | `200` | Cap on new notices per run (cost control) — the rest emit next run |
| `stateStoreName` | string | `uk-tenders-monitor-state` | Change it to reset the monitor and re-run the backfill |

### Use cases

1. **Bid team pipeline feed** — "software development" + `minValueGBP: 100000`,
   scheduled every morning, straight into the pipeline spreadsheet. You see
   every relevant tender the day it goes live, with the submission deadline
   attached.
2. **Incumbent and competitor intelligence** — `stages: ["award"]` +
   `buyerNameContains: "NHS"` tells you who just won what, and for how much,
   across every NHS buyer — the groundwork for re-compete targeting.
3. **Agency new-business radar** — CPV prefix `"79"` (business services) or
   `"7934"` (advertising/marketing) + your region's councils via
   `buyerNameContains`, so account teams get a warm brief before the deadline
   pressure starts.

### Pricing events

| Event | Price | When |
|---|---|---|
| `actor-start` | $0.005 | Once per run |
| `tender-detected` | $0.015 | Per NEW notice emitted |

A daily schedule with tight filters typically emits 0–10 notices per run —
you pay for signal, not for polling.

### Data sources & freshness

Official Cabinet Office OCDS APIs only — no scraping, no auth, Open
Government Licence data:

- Contracts Finder: `contractsfinder.service.gov.uk` OCDS Search API
- Find a Tender: `find-tender.service.gov.uk` OCDS release packages API

Notices appear here within minutes of publication on the portals. If one
portal has an outage, the run degrades gracefully and still delivers the
other source (a warning is logged).

Maintenance promise: source schemas are monitored on every run (drift is
logged, never crashes) and re-verified with each release.

### Changelog

- **0.1** (2026-08-31) — Initial release. Both sources, keyword/CPV/buyer/
  value/stage filters, OCID-deduplicated new-notice detection, 14-day
  backfill.

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Case-insensitive words or phrases matched against notice title AND description. Leave empty to match every notice (use value/CPV filters instead).

## `cpvCodes` (type: `array`):

Optional CPV code prefixes, e.g. '72' matches all IT services (72000000...). A notice matches if any of its CPV codes starts with any prefix given.

## `buyerNameContains` (type: `string`):

Optional case-insensitive substring filter on the buying organisation name, e.g. 'NHS' or 'Council'.

## `minValueGBP` (type: `integer`):

Only emit notices with a stated value of at least this many GBP. Notices without a published value are excluded when this is set.

## `maxValueGBP` (type: `integer`):

Only emit notices with a stated value of at most this many GBP. Notices without a published value are excluded when this is set.

## `stages` (type: `array`):

Which notice stages to emit: 'tender' (open opportunities) and/or 'award' (contract awards - incumbent intelligence). Default: both.

## `sinceDays` (type: `integer`):

How many days of published notices to scan. On the first run this is your backfill; on later runs only notices not seen before are emitted.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Cap on new notices emitted in a single run (cost control). Notices over the cap are picked up on the next run.

## `stateStoreName` (type: `string`):

Named key-value store holding seen notice ids. Change it to reset the monitor and re-emit the backfill.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "software development"
  ],
  "stages": [
    "tender",
    "award"
  ],
  "sinceDays": 14,
  "maxItems": 200,
  "stateStoreName": "uk-tenders-monitor-state"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `records` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "keywords": [
        "software development"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("datadeltas/uk-tenders-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "keywords": ["software development"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("datadeltas/uk-tenders-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "keywords": [
    "software development"
  ]
}' |
apify call datadeltas/uk-tenders-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,datadeltas/uk-tenders-monitor"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/oRiihh6jfwsR0zIGQ/builds/47aFrNGmXVahSUTB3/openapi.json