UK Tenders Alerts: Contracts Finder + Find a Tender

Public-sector buying in the UK is announced on two government portals, and the same work is sometimes posted on both. This Actor reads both official feeds, joins the duplicates, and returns a single flat dataset of tenders and contract awards.

What it does

• Reads Contracts Finder and Find a Tender together and returns tenders and contract awards as one flat list; a notice posted on both becomes one row.
• Narrows the list by keyword, CPV code, buyer, region, postcode, value, deadline or SME suitability.
• In monitor mode, on a schedule, returns only notices that are new or have changed since its last run.

Emails and phone numbers are removed from notice text (other text, including staff names a buyer wrote in, is kept as published), and supplier names that cannot be confirmed as organisations are withheld (about 3 in 10 supplier entries on award notices in our tests). See "Contact data and withheld supplier names" below.

Who it is for

• Companies that sell to councils, the NHS and central government and want a standing alert for tenders in their line of work.
• Bid and proposal consultants who track opportunities across several customer industries from one scheduled run.
• Business-development and market-research teams that study contract awards: the winner, the buyer and the contract value.
• Data analysts who need a ready-made procurement table instead of parsing nested OCDS JSON.

Input examples

Daily alert for maintenance work in the south-west, open to SMEs, closing on or after 17 October (from 00:00 UTC):

{
  "mode": "monitor",
  "keywords": ["maintenance", "repairs"],
  "noticeTypes": ["tender"],
  "postcodePrefixes": ["SN", "BA", "BS"],
  "smeSuitable": true,
  "deadlineAfter": "2026-10-17",
  "maxRows": 200
}

Who won software work over £100k in the seven days to 17 October (a date without a time means 00:00 UTC):

{
  "mode": "search",
  "dateFrom": "2026-10-10",
  "dateTo": "2026-10-17",
  "noticeTypes": ["award"],
  "cpvPrefixes": ["72"],
  "minValue": 100000,
  "includeUnknownValue": false
}

Quick test (the default prefill, at most 9 rows, under $0.05): {"mode":"search","keywords":["maintenance"],"maxRows":9}. The prefill sets only keywords and maxRows; with the input left empty, maxRows defaults to 1000, so raise or remove the cap for a full search.

Filters combine with AND; the values inside one filter are OR. cpvPrefixes are digits only (for example 45 for construction, 7226 for software services). regions accepts a delivery region as published or a buyer region code prefix such as UKI. postcodePrefixes ignore spaces and case. Value filters test the awarded value, or the estimated value when nothing was awarded.

Output example

A real row from the Actor's own test run of 22 October 2026 (description shortened):

{
  "source": "contractsFinder",
  "noticeId": "7eeb3a8e-8f79-46c3-92bf-a032bedc89d7",
  "ocid": "ocds-b5fd17-e12d8fe4-99cd-4d62-a6e9-ee2b1870c8f5",
  "noticeType": "tender",
  "tags": ["tender"],
  "title": "CA18576 - Electrical Maintenance. 4 Year Opportunity",
  "description": "New College Swindon invites tenders for Electrical Maintenance Services, including planned maintenance, statutory testing, reactive repairs and associated electrical works across the college estate. ...",
  "buyerName": "New College Swindon",
  "buyerId": "GB-CFS-219079",
  "buyerPostcode": "SN3 1AH",
  "deliveryRegions": [],
  "deliveryPostcode": "SN3 1AH",
  "cpvCodes": ["45310000", "50711000", "71314100"],
  "valueAmount": 400000,
  "awardedValue": null,
  "currency": "GBP",
  "deadlineDate": "2026-11-19T10:00:00Z",
  "publishedDate": "2026-10-16T14:24:18Z",
  "updatedDate": "2026-10-16T14:24:18Z",
  "status": "active",
  "procurementMethod": "open",
  "procedure": "Open procedure",
  "mainCategory": "services",
  "sme": true,
  "vcse": false,
  "suppliers": [],
  "supplierIds": [],
  "suppliersWithheld": 0,
  "url": "https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/7eeb3a8e-8f79-46c3-92bf-a032bedc89d7",
  "seenIn": ["contractsFinder"],
  "licenseUrl": "http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "changeType": null
}

Also in each row but left out above (all null for this notice): formCode, submissionDetails, buyerRegion and aboveThreshold. The full field list (36 columns) is in the dataset schema. changeType is new or changed in monitor mode and null otherwise.

How the data is built

• Both official feeds. Contracts Finder (the main portal for England and UK-wide opportunities) and Find a Tender (above-threshold notices, and all notices under the Procurement Act 2023) are read together. Notices posted in both places become one row, with seenIn showing where.
• One flat schema. No nested OCDS. Buyer, delivery region and postcode, CPV codes, estimated and awarded value, currency, deadline, suppliers, procedure and a direct notice link are plain columns.
• Clean values. All dates are UTC. Values are numbers. Missing data is null, not an empty string, and a value is 0 only when the notice itself says 0. Contracts Finder's award-only values and Find a Tender's contract values are both picked up.
• Awards that are really republished. An old award that is re-posted keeps its original publishedDate; updatedDate shows the re-post.
• Monitor mode. Run it on a schedule and get only notices that are new or whose content changed. A re-publish with identical content is not sent again.
• Contact data removed. Contact-point fields (names, emails, phones) are never read, and emails and phone numbers inside notice text are replaced. Details, and the rule for withheld supplier names, are in "Contact data and withheld supplier names" below.
• Polite by design. One request every 2 seconds per host, one at a time, with back-off when the service asks.

Pricing

Pay per result: $5 per 1,000 rows ($0.005 per notice), charged only for rows delivered. Runs that find nothing, and runs that stop on an input error, cost nothing. Use maxRows to cap spend.

Data source and licence

Notices come from the official OCDS APIs of Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Every row carries licenseUrl; please keep the attribution "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0" when you republish.

This is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, the Cabinet Office or Crown Commercial Service.

Update schedule and freshness

• No stored copy: every run reads the two official feeds live, so each run returns what the feeds list at that moment. How quickly the feeds list a notice is up to the government services.
• Search mode covers the date range you give (default: the last 24 hours, at most 31 days). All dates are UTC.
• Monitor mode is made for a daily schedule (Apify Schedules). The first run looks back lookbackHours (default 24); later runs continue from the previous run with a 2-hour overlap, and a re-publish with identical content is not sent again.

Limits and good to know

• Search ranges are limited to 31 days; use monitor mode for continuous coverage.
• Run time. A 24-hour search takes well under a minute. Longer windows take longer: a 7-day search measured about 3 minutes. Find a Tender sometimes asks the Actor to pause for 2 minutes, and the Actor honours that, so a 31-day search can take several minutes or more. Set the run timeout accordingly (60 minutes is a safe choice for long windows). If a source keeps refusing for about half an hour, the run stops with a clear message and no charge.
• Contracts Finder returns at most 100 notices per request. The Actor follows the feed's paging cursor when it offers one, and otherwise splits the time window automatically until nothing is cut off. If Contracts Finder answers with a rate-limit refusal (HTTP 403), the Actor waits 5 minutes and retries up to twice, then stops with a clear message and no charge. In the unlikely case that a one-minute window still holds 100 notices, it is flagged as cfWindowTruncated in the OUTPUT record.
• Cross-feed merging needs the same buyer name, title and deadline date. A notice that is worded differently on the two feeds will appear twice.
• Monitor state is stored in a named key-value store in your account: one baseline per saved Task, and for direct runs one per distinct set of filters (changing any filter on a direct run starts a fresh baseline that looks back lookbackHours). The first run looks back lookbackHours (default 24); later runs continue from the previous run with a 2-hour overlap.
• The OUTPUT record also lists how many requests were sent to each source, how many retries happened and how long the Actor waited, so you can see how close a run is to your time limit. A notice with no buyer in the source data is skipped and counted in rowsDroppedInvalid.
• Monitor mode delivers the oldest notices first. If maxRows or your run's maximum charge cuts a run short, the next run carries on where it stopped. A monitor window never reaches back more than 31 days: if a schedule was paused longer, older notices are skipped and windowCapped is true in the OUTPUT record.
• If either feed is down, the run stops with a clear message and charges nothing.
• No logins. Supplier names without an organisation-register id are withheld unless they clearly look like a company, so about 3 in 10 supplier entries on award notices are shown as [individual supplier withheld] (count in suppliersWithheld).

Contact data and withheld supplier names

Contact-point fields (names, emails, phones) are never read. Emails and phone numbers inside notice text (UK numbers starting 0, +44 or 0044, including a bracketed (0) or (020); any +<country code> number, with the area code optionally in brackets, such as +44 (20) 7946 0958 or +1 (212) 555-0100; and Irish 00353) are replaced with [email removed] or [phone removed]; notice ids, CPV codes, prices and dates are kept. Other text, including staff names a buyer wrote into the notice, is kept as published. Supplier names that cannot be confirmed as organisations (this includes sole traders and some real companies) are replaced by [individual supplier withheld] and their ids are dropped too; a supplier is named only on a strict allow-list: either its id is a company, charity or public-body register id (Companies House, Charity Commission, OSCR, and similar), or the whole name is a plain company name ending in Ltd, Limited, LLP, PLC, CIC, CIO, LP, Inc, LLC, GmbH, S.A. or B.V., or a plain public-body name ("Leeds City Council", "... NHS Foundation Trust", "... University", "... Police Service", "... Combined Authority"; or exactly one word after NHS, University of, Ministry of, Department for/of or HM, such as "University of Leeds" or "HM Treasury"; or a short fixed list such as "HM Revenue and Customs"). A name with " of " after its second word before a council or similar body is withheld. Names with commas, brackets, dashes, a title (Mr, Dr...), "t/a", "trading as", "c/o" or a person-role word (consultant, locum, tutor...) are always withheld, as is everything else. When unsure, the name is withheld, so some real companies are hidden (for example names with brackets, unless they have a register id). In practice this affects a lot of award suppliers: supplier names without an organisation-register id are withheld unless they clearly look like a company. On recent data about 3 in 10 supplier entries were withheld (measured: 28% in one 24-hour run, 30% over 7 days). The number withheld on each row is in suppliersWithheld.

FAQ

Does it cover both Contracts Finder and Find a Tender? Yes, both by default. Use sources to read only one.

How do I get only new notices every day? Use "mode": "monitor" and put the Actor on a daily Apify schedule. It returns notices that are new or whose content changed; changeType says which.

Why do some suppliers show as [individual supplier withheld]? A supplier name is shown only when it carries an organisation-register id or clearly looks like a company or public body. Anything else is withheld, including some real companies. About 3 in 10 supplier entries on award notices were withheld in our tests; the number per row is in suppliersWithheld.

Why does the same notice sometimes appear twice? Notices from the two feeds are merged only when buyer name, title and deadline date match. If the two feeds word them differently, you get two rows.

How much does a first test cost? The default prefill returns at most 9 rows, which is under $0.05 at $0.005 per notice.

Can I use the data commercially? The notices are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which asks for attribution. See "Data source and licence".

Something looks wrong. Where do I report it? Open an issue on this Actor's page with the run link and the noticeId. We aim to reply within 24 hours.

Changelog

• 22 Oct 2026, first release. Both portals joined into a single dataset; search and monitor modes. Both feeds are queried in UK local time, including the night the clocks change (25 Oct 2026). Notices that list their buyer only as a party with the role buyer still get a buyer; a notice with no buyer at all is skipped and counted in rowsDroppedInvalid. The OUTPUT record reports requests, retries and waiting time per run.