UK Contracts Finder: government tenders and awards by keyword

UK public sector tenders and contract awards from Contracts Finder by keyword, stage, value and date: buyer, title, description, value, CPV, region, deadline, contract period, SME suitability, awarded supplier and links, from the official OCDS API. Up to 50 searches a run. Pay per notice.

Why this scraper

• Only delivered results are charged. Inputs that fail come back as clear error records at no cost.
• Straight from the Cabinet Office's own OCDS API, the open data behind contractsfinder.service.gov.uk, under the Open Government Licence. Measured on the platform: 240 open tenders for two search terms in 92 seconds for one cent; the source itself is slow, the actor is not.
• One row per notice in the Open Contracting shape, flattened: buyer, title and description, estimated value, main and additional CPV codes with their description, delivery region, procurement method, goods, services or works, bid deadline, contract start and end, whether the buyer marked it suitable for SMEs or voluntary organisations, and for awards the winning supplier, the awarded value and the award date.
• Stages map to the buying cycle: tender for open opportunities, award for who won, planning for early market engagement; a value range filter drops what is too small or too large to bid on.
• Newest first with a per-search ceiling and a default window of the last 90 days, so a daily run returns only what is new.

Who this is for

Put search terms in queries (up to 50 per run), set stages (default tender), optionally publishedSince (YYYY-MM-DD), valueFrom and valueTo in pounds, and maxNoticesPerQuery (default 100). Built for bid teams and sales teams that sell to UK councils, NHS trusts, universities and agencies, for market research on public spending by category and region, and for lists of buyers and winning suppliers.

Who this is not for

Contracts Finder covers England and, partly, the wider UK for contracts above 12,000 pounds (central government) or 30,000 pounds (other bodies); Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own portals and the large above-threshold notices also appear on Find a Tender. The keyword search is the source's own and matches broadly, so a term can return notices that mention it only in passing. valueGbp is empty when the buyer publishes no estimate, never guessed. The source answers slowly, a page of 100 in one to two minutes, and refuses searches over its whole archive, which is why a run without publishedSince looks back 90 days. The contact person named on a notice is not read.

Input fields

Field	Type	Required or default	What it does
queries	list of text	required	One search per row, up to 50: words in the notice title or description, for example software development.
stages	list of text		tender for open opportunities, award for awarded contracts, planning for early engagement. Empty means tender.
publishedSince	text		Only notices published on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD). Empty means the last 90 days.
valueFrom	number		Only notices with an estimated or awarded value of at least this amount. Empty means no minimum.
valueTo	number		Only notices with a value up to this amount. Empty means no maximum.
maxNoticesPerQuery	number	100	Cost ceiling per search, newest first.

Input example

{
    "queries": [
        "software",
        "cleaning services"
    ],
    "stages": [
        "tender"
    ],
    "maxNoticesPerQuery": 100
}

Output example

Field	Type	What it holds	Example
noticeId	text	The buyer's own reference of the notice, for example ESOP1000127; the OCID is the cross-system key.	RNT-LTC-FRC-01
ocid	text	The Open Contracting ID of the procurement process, shared by its tender, award and contract notices.	ocds-b5fd17-8dad35aa-7fe5-46b6-8304-34f9a9713fed
title	text	The notice title as the buyer wrote it.	Balfour Beatty - Roads North of the Thames - LTC - FRC St...
description	text	The buyer's description of what is bought; can be long.	This document is an invitation to tender (ITT) for the de...
buyerName	text	The public body that buys, as registered on Contracts Finder (often in capitals).	BALFOUR BEATTY CIVIL ENGINEERING LIMITED
stage	text	tender for an open opportunity, award for an awarded contract, planning for early market engagement.	tender
noticeStatus	text	active, complete, cancelled or unsuccessful as Contracts Finder marks the tender.	active
publishedDate	text	The day the notice was published.	2026-09-30
deadline	text	The deadline for bids; empty on awards and planning notices.	2026-10-14
contractStart	text	The planned start of the contract.	2028-04-01
contractEnd	text	The planned end of the contract.	2030-11-01
valueGbp	number	The estimated value the buyer published, in pounds; empty when the buyer gives none, never estimated by us.	1000000
currency	text	The currency of valueGbp, GBP unless the buyer says otherwise.	GBP
cpv	text	The main Common Procurement Vocabulary code of what is bought.	45221100
cpvDescription	text	That code in words, from the notice itself.	Construction work for bridges
additionalCpv	list	Further CPV codes on the notice.	["45223200", "45223500"]
region	text	The delivery regions named on the notice, for example North West or Northern Ireland.	East of England, South East
procurementMethod	text	open, selective, limited or direct, in OCDS terms.	open
procurementMethodDetails	text	The procedure as the buyer describes it, for example Open procedure (below threshold).	Open procedure (above threshold)
category	text	goods, services or works.	works
suitableForSme	true/false	Whether the buyer marked the opportunity as suitable for small and medium enterprises.	True
suitableForVcse	true/false	Whether the buyer marked it as suitable for voluntary, community and social enterprises.	True
awardedSupplier	text	The company or companies awarded the contract; only on award notices.
awardValueGbp	number	The awarded value in pounds; only on award notices.
awardDate	text	The award date; only on award notices.
url	text	The notice page on Contracts Finder.	https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/bd6f6ea...
query	text	The search term this row was found with.	cleaning services

Error codes: INVALID_QUERY, NO_RESULTS, BLOCKED.

One delivered row looks like this:

{
  "noticeId": "MT238218",
  "ocid": "ocds-b5fd17-0ef77028-82a3-4664-830f-1408fc3afa4e",
  "title": "Contract for the Provision of Hire Vehicles",
  "description": "Provision of three hire vehicle for use by Members of Authority staff to travel to and from MWDA's facilities.\r\nFurther details are provided in the Specification within the Tender documents.",
  "buyerName": "Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority",
  "stage": "tender",
  "noticeStatus": "active",
  "publishedDate": "2026-09-24",
  "deadline": "2026-10-26",
  "contractStart": "2026-12-01",
  "contractEnd": "2029-11-30",
  "valueGbp": 48600,
  "currency": "GBP",
  "cpv": "34100000",
  "cpvDescription": "Motor vehicles",
  "additionalCpv": [],
  "region": "North West",
  "procurementMethod": "open",
  "procurementMethodDetails": "Open procedure (below threshold)",
  "category": "services",
  "suitableForSme": true,
  "suitableForVcse": false,
  "awardedSupplier": null,
  "awardValueGbp": null,
  "awardDate": null,
  "url": "https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/2fc5a2e0-854f-43ec-b88b-0eafbb58d740",
  "query": "cleaning services",
  "status": "ok"
}

Related actors from steadydata

• eu-tenders: the same for EU-wide notices on TED
• company-career-site-jobs: who a winning supplier is hiring
• google-news: press coverage of a buyer or a contract

Pricing

Pay per event: one notice-listed event per delivered result. No charge for inputs that fail, no separate platform-usage surcharge.

Free Apify plan: this actor delivers up to 25 rows per run for accounts on the Apify free plan, and then stops with a message. That limit is set by us, not by Apify. It exists so the actor keeps paying for itself for the people who do pay. Any paid Apify plan runs it at full size, billed per delivered row, with failed rows never charged.

Reviews: if this actor saves you time, a short review on this page is the one thing that helps most. Ratings are what other buyers look at first, and we have no other way to ask.

FAQ

Is personal data collected? No. Rows carry the public body, the notice and, on awards, the supplier company. The contact person with phone and email that notices carry is not read.

How do I see who won? Set stages to award: those rows carry awardedSupplier, awardValueGbp and awardDate. The ocid is the same for the tender and its award, so the two can be joined.

How do I get only new opportunities every morning? Run with publishedSince set to yesterday and your search terms. Searches with nothing new come back as a free NO_RESULTS row.

Why does a search for cleaning return a vehicle contract? Because the keyword search is the source's own and matches any of the words anywhere in the notice. Combine a term with valueFrom or check cpv on the row to keep what fits.

Why is the run slow? Contracts Finder itself takes one to two minutes per page of 100 notices. The actor waits, retries a gateway error on a fresh connection, and charges only for what arrives.

What does a run cost when a search finds nothing? Nothing. NO_RESULTS, INVALID_QUERY and BLOCKED rows are free; only delivered notices are charged.

What happens when the source changes? Sources change from time to time; that is the nature of this work. The actor is monitored daily and fixed fast, and while it is broken you are not charged, because only delivered results cost anything.