# UK Tenders Scraper (Find a Tender + Contracts Finder) (`islandata/uk-tenders-gov`) Actor

UK public procurement from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder as clean JSON: one row per notice with CPV decoded, GBP values with EUR conversion, deadline with days left, buyer, lots, winners and awarded amounts. Filter by stage, CPV, keyword, value; 'only new' mode. OGL data, no personal data.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/islandata/uk-tenders-gov.md
- **Developed by:** [Radu Coman](https://apify.com/islandata) (community)
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.40 / 1,000 procurement notices

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## UK Tenders Scraper: Find a Tender + Contracts Finder, normalized for people and AI agents

**Every public procurement notice from the UK's two official portals, Find a Tender (above-threshold, UK-wide) and Contracts Finder (England, including small contracts), as one clean JSON row: buyer, CPV codes decoded, GBP values with EUR conversion, deadline with days left, lots, winners and awarded amounts.** Export UK government tenders and contract awards to JSON, CSV or Excel, build a daily tender alert by CPV, keyword or minimum value, and feed Google Sheets, n8n, Make or an AI agent, without parsing OCDS yourself.

Both portals publish Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) releases through free APIs, but the structures differ between portals and between tender and award stages, classifications sit in three different places, and values come in net and gross variants. This Actor reads both feeds and returns one predictable schema, with the same field names as our TED (EU) and BOAMP (France) Actors.

### Who uses it

- **Bid writers and public-sector sales teams** who need every new UK tender in their sector each morning, in Excel or Google Sheets, with the deadline and estimated value already extracted.
- **Suppliers tracking competitors**: who won which contract, for how much, from which council, NHS trust or department.
- **Analysts and journalists** working with public spending and procurement data.
- **AI agents and automations** (n8n, Make, Zapier, MCP) that need one flat schema for both portals.

### What you get per row

| Block | Fields |
|---|---|
| identity | source and portal name, OCID, release id, notice URL, release date, OCDS tags, stage (planning, tender, award, contract), status |
| text | `title`, `description` (emails and phone numbers pasted by buyers are removed) |
| `buyer` | name, identifier scheme and id (PPON, Companies House…), locality, postcode, region, country, website |
| `delivery` | regions and countries of performance |
| classification | `cpv` with English labels (from tender, items and awards), `cpvDivisions`, category (goods, services, works), procurement method and details, above-threshold flag, legal basis, SME and VCSE suitability |
| `lots` | id, title, value, currency, status; `lotCount` |
| `value` | amount, gross amount, currency, **amountEur** (ECB rate of the day), rate date |
| `deadline` | tender deadline date, date-time, **daysLeft** |
| `contractPeriod` | start and end |
| `awards` | id, date, status, suppliers, amount, currency, contract period; `awardedTotal`, `bidsReceived` |
| extras | document links, source attribution, scrape timestamp |

No contact persons, emails or phone numbers are extracted.

### Input

- **Sources**: Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, or both (default).
- **Stages**: tender (default), award, planning.
- **Published or updated in the last N days** (default 3) or explicit dates.
- **CPV codes or prefixes**, **keyword** and **minimum value**: applied after download, so narrow dates for large pulls.
- **Max items** (default 500) and **Only new since last run** (monitoring mode).

```json
{ "sources": ["fts"], "stages": ["tender"], "publishedSinceDays": 7, "cpvPrefixes": ["72"], "minValue": 100000 }
```

```json
{ "sources": ["cf"], "stages": ["award"], "publishedFrom": "2026-10-01", "publishedTo": "2026-10-31", "maxItems": 5000 }
```

### Pricing

Pay per event: **$0.002 per notice row**, charged only after the row is saved. No charge for platform usage. Monitoring all new UK tenders daily (a few hundred rows) costs well under $1 per day.

### Quality and limits

- Every row is validated against a strict schema before it is saved; invalid rows are logged and never charged.
- Tested on 200 real releases: CPV on more than 90 % of Find a Tender releases and 100 % of Contracts Finder releases, deadline on 100 % of Contracts Finder tenders, buyer locality on 100 %.
- The portals' APIs are paginated by cursor and rate-limited with Retry-After; the Actor stays at two requests per second and honours it.
- Find a Tender filters by update date (a notice updated today is returned even if first published earlier); Contracts Finder filters by publication date.

### How to use it

**In the Apify Console**: choose sources and stages, press Start, download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel.

**From your code (Apify API)**:

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/islandata~uk-tenders-gov/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"sources": ["fts", "cf"], "stages": ["tender"], "publishedSinceDays": 1, "cpvPrefixes": ["72"]}'
```

**In n8n, Make or Zapier**: use the Apify node or app, pick `islandata/uk-tenders-gov`, schedule it daily with `onlyNew: true` and map the rows to Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, Slack or email: a UK tender alert in three nodes.

**With an AI agent (MCP)**: connect the agent to `https://mcp.apify.com?tools=islandata/uk-tenders-gov` and ask for "IT tenders above £100k closing in the next 14 days". Rank by `value.amount` and `deadline.daysLeft`.

### FAQ

**Is this the official Find a Tender or Contracts Finder API?** It uses both official, free OCDS APIs and returns their data in one normalized schema. No account or key is needed.

**What is the difference between the two portals?** Find a Tender carries above-threshold notices for the whole UK under the Procurement Act 2023; Contracts Finder carries English public-sector contracts, including small ones below the thresholds. The Actor reads both by default.

**Can I get awards (who won)?** Yes: `stages: ["award"]` returns award notices with suppliers, amounts and contract periods.

**Does it include contact persons?** No. Buyer organisations are included; contact names, emails and phone numbers are not extracted, and those pasted into descriptions are removed.

### Attribution and reuse

Data from the UK Cabinet Office: Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Keep the attribution in `meta.source` when you redistribute.

# Actor input Schema

## `sources` (type: `array`):

Empty = both portals.

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

Which stage of the contracting process to return. Default: tender.

## `publishedSinceDays` (type: `integer`):

Default 2. Together both portals publish several hundred releases per day; the Find a Tender API rate-limits bursts with a 2-minute Retry-After, which the Actor honours.

## `publishedFrom` (type: `string`):

Optional explicit start date; overrides the N days setting.

## `publishedTo` (type: `string`):

Optional end date.

## `cpvPrefixes` (type: `array`):

Keep only notices whose CPV codes start with one of these, e.g. 45 (construction), 72 (IT), 33 (medical). Empty = all.

## `keywords` (type: `string`):

Keep only notices whose title, description or buyer contains this text (case-insensitive).

## `minValue` (type: `integer`):

Keep only notices with a published value at or above this amount. Notices without a value are dropped when set.

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

Stop after this many rows. Each row is one paid 'result' event.

## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`):

Remembers the releases already returned by this Actor (per account) and skips them.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "sources": [
    "fts",
    "cf"
  ],
  "stages": [
    "tender"
  ],
  "publishedSinceDays": 2,
  "cpvPrefixes": [],
  "keywords": "",
  "maxItems": 500,
  "onlyNew": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `rows` (type: `string`):

One row per notice release: buyer, CPV with labels, values, deadline, lots, awards.

## `rowsCsv` (type: `string`):

No description

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Filters used, counts per source and run economics.

# 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 = {
    "sources": [
        "fts",
        "cf"
    ],
    "stages": [
        "tender"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("islandata/uk-tenders-gov").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 = {
    "sources": [
        "fts",
        "cf",
    ],
    "stages": ["tender"],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("islandata/uk-tenders-gov").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 '{
  "sources": [
    "fts",
    "cf"
  ],
  "stages": [
    "tender"
  ]
}' |
apify call islandata/uk-tenders-gov --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/s7j2Rrqg2j6NaCH1s/builds/uphXUkJO9pdstTNOa/openapi.json