Contracts Finder is the UK government's free procurement portal. Every public sector buyer in England must publish contract opportunities worth £25,000 or more on this platform. That includes councils, NHS trusts, central government departments, police forces, and housing associations. If you sell to the public sector and you are not using Contracts Finder, you are operating blind.
The platform holds over 170,000 contract notices. Live tenders, awarded contracts, closed opportunities. It is the single largest open dataset of UK public spending available to any supplier, at no cost. But most suppliers use it badly. They run one search, see 2,000 results, get overwhelmed, and close the tab. This guide shows you how to actually use Contracts Finder to find, filter, and win the contracts that match your business.
What Exactly Is Contracts Finder?
Contracts Finder is a search engine for public sector procurement. It launched in 2011 and became mandatory for central government contracts above £10,000 and all other public body contracts above £25,000 after the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
The platform is run by the Cabinet Office. It is free to use. No registration required to search. You only need an account to express interest or receive documents.
Every notice on the platform includes the buyer name, contract title, description, estimated value, deadline, and procurement procedure. Awarded contracts include the winner's name and the final value. This is public information. You are legally entitled to see it.
Contracts Finder covers England only. Scotland uses Public Contracts Scotland. Wales uses Sell2Wales. Northern Ireland uses eTendersNI. Find a Tender covers UK wide contracts above the higher procurement thresholds (£214,904 for goods/services).
How Do You Search Contracts Finder Properly?
The default Contracts Finder search is basic. Keyword box, a few filters, and a results list. But there is more depth than most suppliers ever use.
Keywords matter more than anything else. Councils and NHS trusts do not describe services the way you do. If you are a security company, search "security", "guarding", "CCTV", "manned guarding", "patrol", and "access control". One keyword is never enough. Run 5 to 8 searches per session.
Use the status filter. "Open" shows you tenders accepting bids right now. "Closed" shows expired opportunities. "Awarded" shows completed procurements with winner names and values. Most suppliers only search "Open". That is a mistake. Awarded contracts are where the intelligence lives.
Filter by value. You can set minimum and maximum contract values. If you are an SME targeting contracts under £500,000, set that as your ceiling. It removes the £200 million infrastructure programmes that clutter your results.
Filter by location. Contracts Finder lets you narrow by region. If you only operate in the North West, filter for it. No point scrolling through London contracts you cannot serve.
Publication date matters. Sort by newest first. Contracts Finder publishes notices daily. If you search once a month, you are seeing opportunities with 3 days left on the deadline. Search weekly at minimum.
How Do You Read a Contract Notice?
Every notice on Contracts Finder follows a standard structure. Knowing what to look for saves you hours.
The title tells you what the buyer is purchasing. "Provision of Grounds Maintenance Services" is clear. "Professional Services Framework" is vague. Read the description before deciding.
The description contains the scope. What the buyer needs, how long the contract runs, and sometimes the evaluation criteria. Read every word. The description tells you whether this contract fits your capability.
The value is usually an estimate. It might say "£100,000 to £500,000" for the full contract term. Divide by the number of years to get the annual value. If the annual number is too small to be worth your time, move on.
The deadline is non negotiable. Miss it by one minute and your bid goes in the bin. Note the timezone (usually UK time) and submit at least 24 hours early. Portal crashes on deadline day are common.
The procedure tells you the procurement route. Open procedure means anyone can bid. Restricted procedure means you submit a pre qualification questionnaire first, then get shortlisted. Competitive dialogue means the buyer wants to negotiate. Know which process you are entering.
The documents contain everything. The specification, pricing schedule, evaluation criteria, and terms. Download all of them. Read the evaluation criteria before you write a single word of your bid. If 60% of the score is quality and 40% is price, do not compete on price alone.
Why Do Awarded Contracts Matter More Than Live Tenders?
This is where most suppliers get it wrong. They treat Contracts Finder as a job board. Scroll, find a live tender, apply. That reactive approach means you are always late.
Awarded contracts tell you three critical things.
Who won. Now you know your competition by name. You can look them up on Companies House, see their size, their accreditations, their specialisms. If the same company keeps winning contracts in your sector, study what they are doing differently.
What they won it for. The awarded value tells you the market rate. If cleaning contracts in your region consistently award at £12 per hour, you know where to price. If the contract value is £2 million over 3 years, you know the scale the buyer expects.
When it expires. Every contract has a term. 3 years plus 1 year extension is common. That means 3 to 4 years from the award date, the buyer needs to retender. Mark that date. Start positioning 12 months before. This is the renewal radar strategy. Read our full breakdown on finding incumbent suppliers and tracking contract end dates.
The construction desk and facilities desk on AtlasRevenue surface these patterns automatically, so you see who holds the contract, what it is worth, and when it comes up for renewal.
What Are the Limitations of Contracts Finder?
Contracts Finder is essential but it is not complete. You need to know its gaps.
No keyword alerts. Contracts Finder does not email you when a relevant contract goes live. You must log in and search manually. Every time. There is no RSS feed, no webhook, no notification system. For a platform built in 2011 and used by thousands of suppliers, this is a significant gap.
No pre tender signals. By the time a contract appears on Contracts Finder, the buyer has already written the specification, set the budget, and often consulted with incumbent suppliers. You are seeing the opportunity at the latest possible moment. The real intelligence sits upstream: council forward plans, board papers, policy announcements. We wrote about why tender alerts are too late and what to do instead.
Inconsistent data quality. Some buyers write detailed notices with clear specifications. Others post a two line title and a single PDF attachment. Some awarded contracts show £0 values because the buyer did not fill in the field. You cannot rely on Contracts Finder data being complete or accurate.
England only. No Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish contracts. If you operate across the UK, you need 4 separate platforms.
Below threshold contracts are optional. Buyers are only required to publish contracts above £25,000 (or £10,000 for central government). Below that threshold, publication is voluntary. Many councils buy below threshold services through their own portals or by direct award. You miss these entirely on Contracts Finder.
No buyer intelligence. Contracts Finder shows you individual notices. It does not show you patterns. Which buyers spend the most in your sector? Which regions have the highest concentration of opportunities? Who are the repeat buyers? That analysis requires a layer on top of the raw data.
How Do You Go Beyond Contracts Finder?
Contracts Finder is your starting point, not your finish line. The suppliers who consistently win do more.
Track buyer patterns. Do not just read individual notices. Map which councils buy your services, how often they retender, and what values they award at. Build a buyer watchlist. The AtlasRevenue construction and facilities desks do this automatically with live buyer watchlists and spend tracking.
Monitor Find a Tender for larger opportunities. Anything above the UK procurement thresholds (£214,904 for goods and services) appears here. These are the high value, multi year contracts that can transform a business. Many overlap with Contracts Finder but some appear exclusively on Find a Tender.
Get upstream of the tender. Council forward plans, cabinet meeting agendas, planning applications, and policy papers all signal future procurement. If a council approves a £30 million housing programme in March, the construction and facilities tenders will follow 6 to 18 months later. The suppliers who read those signals early are the ones who shape the specification.
Use demand detection, not tender alerts. Traditional tender alert services email you when a contract goes live. By then, you are already behind. Demand detection identifies the conditions that create procurement: population growth, new housing, policy changes, budget allocations. AtlasRevenue combines Contracts Finder data with ONS, Land Registry, Companies House, and planning data to show you demand before it becomes a tender.
Register on framework agreements. Crown Commercial Service, ESPO, YPO, and sector specific frameworks give you access to call off contracts that never appear on Contracts Finder. Once you are on a framework, buyers can award you work directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Contracts Finder really free to use?
Yes. Contracts Finder is funded by the UK government and free for all suppliers. No subscription, no registration fee. You need a free account to download tender documents and express interest, but searching is open to everyone.
How often are new contracts published on Contracts Finder?
New notices go live daily. Most buyers publish between Tuesday and Thursday. Mondays and Fridays are quieter. The platform indexes notices in near real time, so a contract published at 10am is usually searchable by noon. Searching weekly is the minimum. Twice a week is better.
Can I see who won a contract on Contracts Finder?
Yes. Awarded contract notices must include the winner's name and the contract value. Not all buyers comply fully (some leave the value as £0), but the winner's name is almost always published. This is public information under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
What is the difference between Contracts Finder and Find a Tender?
Contracts Finder covers English public sector contracts above £25,000. Find a Tender covers UK wide contracts above the higher procurement thresholds (£214,904 for goods and services, £5,372,609 for works). Some contracts appear on both platforms. Find a Tender replaced the EU's OJEU system after Brexit and tends to list larger, more complex procurements.
Why do some contracts show £0 value on Contracts Finder?
Buyers are supposed to enter the estimated value but compliance is inconsistent. Some leave it blank or enter £0 because the value is genuinely unknown at tender stage, because the contract is a framework with no guaranteed spend, or because the buyer simply did not fill in the field. Download the tender documents for the actual budget information.
How far back does Contracts Finder data go?
Contracts Finder holds data from 2011 onwards. Historical awarded contracts going back over a decade are searchable. This historical depth is valuable for identifying patterns: which buyers retender every 3 years, which sectors have growing spend, and which suppliers dominate specific categories.
The procurement data you just read about is live and searchable right now. AtlasRevenue pulls Contracts Finder and Find a Tender data daily, layered with buyer intelligence, demand signals, and contract renewal tracking. Stop searching manually.
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