UK Public Tenders: Find a Tender + Contracts Finder

Search UK public sector tenders and contract awards from both official UK government services in one run:

• Find a Tender: higher-value procurements across the UK, including notices under the Procurement Act 2023.
• Contracts Finder: lower-value opportunities and awards, mostly in England.

Neither service lets you search its API by keyword. This Actor reads every notice published in your chosen window, filters it for you, and returns clean, structured results.

• Filter by what you sell. Keywords or phrases, CPV codes (parent codes include sub-codes), minimum value, open-for-tenders only, SME suitability.
• Tenders, awards or pipeline. Choose opportunities, contract awards (with the winning suppliers and award values) or planning notices.
• Ready to act on. Buyer and location, value, CPV, procedure, tender deadline, contract dates, lots, and a link to the notice.
• Alert mode. Schedule it daily to get only new notices that match.
• No API key. Uses the official OCDS APIs of both services.

Who uses it

• Suppliers to the UK public sector, including SMEs looking for winnable lower-value contracts on Contracts Finder.
• Bid teams and bid-writing consultants monitoring their CPV codes.
• Sales and market-intelligence teams tracking which buyers are spending and who is winning.
• AI agents that qualify opportunities automatically.

Input

Field	What it does
keywords	Words or phrases to find in the title or description (any match, case-insensitive).
cpvCodes	CPV codes, e.g. 72000000 (IT services). Parent codes include their sub-codes.
sources	findATender, contractsFinder, or both (default).
stages	tender (opportunities, default), award (winners), planning (pipeline).
daysBack	How many days of notices to read (default 7).
openForTendersOnly	Skip notices whose tender deadline has passed.
minValue	Minimum estimated value in GBP.
smeSuitableOnly	Drop notices that Contracts Finder marks as unsuitable for SMEs.
onlyNewSinceLastRun	Alert mode: return only notices that earlier runs with the same filters have not returned.
maxItems	How many notices to save.
maxScannedPerSource	Safety limit on notices read per source (default 10,000).

Example: open IT and cyber opportunities from the last week:

{
  "keywords": ["software", "IT support", "cyber"],
  "daysBack": 7,
  "openForTendersOnly": true,
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": true,
  "maxItems": 200
}

Output

{
  "noticeId": "104444-2026",
  "ocid": "ocds-h6vhtk-07971d",
  "source": "Find a Tender",
  "stage": "tender",
  "title": "EMMS Cyber Security SME Support Programme",
  "description": "Industrial Cyber Security pilot programme aimed at improving cyber resilience readiness within SME manufacturing businesses.",
  "buyerName": "Lincolnshire County Council",
  "buyerLocality": "Lincoln",
  "buyerPostalCode": "LN1 1YL",
  "value": 65000,
  "currency": "GBP",
  "cpvCode": "72800000",
  "cpvDescription": "Computer audit and testing services",
  "mainCategory": "services",
  "procurementMethod": "Open procedure",
  "publishedDate": "2026-11-03T18:50:26Z",
  "tenderDeadline": "2026-11-18T09:00:00Z",
  "suitableForSme": null,
  "awards": [],
  "url": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/104444-2026"
}

For award notices, awards lists the winning suppliers with the award value and date.

Good to know

• Run time. Find a Tender publishes around 400 notices a day and both services rate-limit their APIs. A 7-day scan usually takes a few minutes, and longer when the services ask clients to slow down. You are only charged for notices saved, not for notices read.
• Duplicates across services. Some higher-value English notices appear on both services, with different IDs.
• Also see EU Tenders (TED) for EU tenders and SAM.gov Contract Opportunities for U.S. federal tenders.

More tools from this developer

Government contracts, grants and regulation:

• SAM.gov Contract Opportunities: Search & New-Notice Alerts
• Federal Contract Awards (USAspending): Who Won What
• Grants.gov Federal Grants: Search & New-Grant Alerts
• EU Tenders (TED): Public Procurement Search & Alerts
• Federal Register Rules & Notices: Search & New-Rule Alerts

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