Contracts Finder vs Find a Tender

Contracts Finder vs Find a Tender: Which Portal Should You Be Using?

If you supply goods, services or works to the UK public sector, you have probably encountered both Contracts Finder and Find a Tender. They are both free, both government-run, and both show public procurement opportunities. But they serve different legal purposes, cover different contract values, and place different obligations on buyers. Using only one is a reliable way to miss contracts that should be on your radar.

This guide explains what each platform does, when buyers must use it, and why monitoring both together still leaves significant gaps in your coverage.

What Is Find a Tender?

Find a Tender (FTS) is the statutory platform for above-threshold public procurement notices in the United Kingdom. It was created after Brexit to replace the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), which UK contracting authorities were required to use until the end of the EU transition period in December 2020.

When a public body needs to procure a contract that exceeds the relevant legal threshold, it is legally obliged to publish a contract notice on Find a Tender before the process begins. That obligation sits in primary legislation, originally the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and now, for procurements started after 24 February 2025, the Procurement Act 2023.

The thresholds that trigger a Find a Tender obligation vary by the type of authority and the type of contract. As a rough guide:

• Central government contracts for goods and services: approximately £139,688
• Sub-central authorities (councils, NHS, universities) for goods and services: approximately £214,904
• Works contracts across all authorities: approximately £5,372,609
• Light-touch regime services (social care, legal, certain research): approximately £663,540

These figures are revised periodically by the Cabinet Office; the Procurement Act 2023 uses broadly similar thresholds. Notice types published on Find a Tender include prior information notices (PINs), contract notices, contract award notices, amendments, and dynamic market notices. All are searchable by keyword, CPV code, buyer, region and date.

What Is Contracts Finder?

Contracts Finder is a separate platform that covers a different, largely complementary segment of public procurement. It was created to increase transparency in government contracting and to help smaller businesses access opportunities that fall below the Find a Tender thresholds.

The key obligations on Contracts Finder are:

• Central government departments and their arm's-length bodies must publish all contracts valued at £12,000 or more (reduced from £25,000 in 2022 to open up more opportunities to SMEs)
• All public bodies are strongly encouraged, though not always legally compelled, to publish below-threshold contracts and award notices
• Award notices for contracts that were advertised on Contracts Finder must also be published there, showing who won and the value awarded

In practice, Contracts Finder is more variable than Find a Tender. Central government bodies publish consistently because they are legally required to. Local councils, NHS trusts and housing associations are patchier, particularly for lower-value work. Contracts Finder also carries pipeline information, where central departments publish planned procurements in advance, which can be useful for early positioning.

Contracts Finder vs Find a Tender: A Direct Comparison

Which Portal Should You Use, and When?

Monitor both, but the right emphasis depends on your market.

If you target large contracts or framework agreements, Find a Tender is your primary source. Every above-threshold notice must appear there. Framework openings, dynamic market establishments and major construction procurements all go through Find a Tender first.

If you target smaller contracts or want visibility of what central government has awarded and to whom, Contracts Finder is more useful. It is also better for forward pipeline, as central departments publish planned procurements in advance.

For most SMEs, the answer is: use both, filtered by CPV code and region. But the real problem arises at the next level down.

The Procurement Act 2023 and the Central Digital Platform

The Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February 2025, mandates a single central digital platform for public procurement notices. In practice this is a modernised Find a Tender, and all contracting authorities covered by the Act must use it. The Act also replaces the dynamic purchasing system (DPS) with the dynamic market, and introduces the flexible procedure alongside the familiar open and restricted routes. New transparency requirements mean richer data alongside each notice: you can increasingly see how incumbents have performed and what buyers have paid for comparable work in the past.

Contracts Finder is not being replaced by the Act but it sits alongside the new central platform in a similar supporting role, covering below-threshold visibility and award transparency for domestic buyers.

Why Both Platforms Still Leave Significant Gaps

Here is the issue that neither platform resolves, and it is the most important practical point for any active supplier.

A large share of UK procurement activity never appears on either platform, not because buyers are breaking rules, but because it is legitimately below threshold, issued as a framework call-off, or published on a buyer's own eProcurement portal where registered suppliers are invited directly. A council, housing association, NHS trust or university will typically use one of these dedicated systems for their day-to-day tendering:

• In-Tend / InTendHost: Used by over 100 councils, housing associations, police forces and universities across the UK. Opportunities appear on each authority's own branded portal and are searchable only if you are registered or know where to look.
• ProContract / Due North: Covers nine regional consortia and a national catch-all, used across local government and the NHS.
• Jaggaer / Jaggaer UKP: Used by organisations including the BBC, Ministry of Defence, Network Rail and a number of water companies.
• Atamis / ProSpend: Operates CSV-based portals for approximately 35 NHS and government organisations. Opportunities on these portals are frequently published only there, especially for below-threshold contracts.
• Mercell / EU-Supply: Powers consortium portals for higher education purchasing groups including SUPC, NWUPC, LUPC, HEPCW and APUC. If you supply to universities and have never registered on these platforms, you are missing a substantial volume of relevant work.
• Sell2Wales, Public Contracts Scotland, eSourcingNI: The devolved nations run their own statutory portals. Welsh above-threshold contracts go to Sell2Wales (which forwards to Find a Tender), but much below-threshold work stays on the devolved platform alone.

Each system requires separate registration and sends alerts only to suppliers already on its books. A buyer using In-Tend has no obligation to cross-post to Contracts Finder for a £30,000 contract. Their legal duty is satisfied by advertising on their own compliant portal. The portals above collectively publish thousands of notices per month that never reach either statutory platform.

How TenderSignal Fills the Gap

TenderSignal aggregates notices from Find a Tender, Contracts Finder and over 140 additional UK and Irish procurement sources into a single personalised feed. Set your CPV categories, region and contract value range once, and receive a daily digest of matching opportunities from across the full landscape. The In-Tend notice from a local authority, the Atamis opportunity from an NHS trust, and the Sell2Wales notice from a Welsh public body all appear alongside above-threshold Find a Tender notices, without separate registrations or daily checks across multiple systems.

Start monitoring the full range of UK procurement opportunities with TenderSignal today.