Procurement glossary · Notices and finding work
Contracts Finder
A UK government service publishing public sector contract opportunities and awards, including a large volume of lower value work that never appears on Find a Tender. It is free to search and it is where most smaller suppliers find their first realistic public sector opportunity.
What it means in practice
Contracts Finder is the more useful of the two services for a supplier starting out, because the contract sizes are within reach and the competition is thinner.
The work published here is often below the threshold at which the full procurement regime applies, which means faster processes, shorter documents and quicker decisions. A first public sector contract won here becomes the reference you need for larger bids, which is the real reason to take low value work seriously early on.
Search it by keyword and by CPV code, and search awards as well as opportunities. The award history for your sector in your region is a map of who your competitors actually are, as opposed to who you assume they are.
Where suppliers get caught
Dismissing below threshold work as too small to bother with. The first two or three public contracts a supplier wins are rarely profitable in themselves. They are the evidence that makes the fourth bid credible, and without them a supplier is permanently stuck arguing capability from private sector work that public buyers discount.
Common questions
What is the difference between Contracts Finder and Find a Tender?
Find a Tender publishes above-threshold notices and is the legal place of publication for them. Contracts Finder carries a wider range, including a lot of lower value opportunities. Smaller suppliers generally find more realistic work on Contracts Finder.
Do I need to pay for a tender alert service?
Not to see the opportunities. Both government services are free and carry the notices. A paid service can earn its fee on filtering and on earlier intelligence, but it cannot show you a published notice that the free sources do not have.
Related terms
If a tender in front of you turns on this, send us the documents and the deadline and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth bidding. Call 020 3668 5488, or read the rest of the UK procurement glossary.