What it is, and who runs it
A searchable notice service: you search by keyword, filter by region and value, open a notice, and register as a supplier if you want email updates and saved searches. GOV.UK's own wording is that you can create an account to get email updates and save your searches, and that you can still search and apply for contracts without an account.
The notices are the buyers' own published records. Contracts Finder does not rewrite them, score them or tell you which ones suit a firm your size.
Open Contracts Finder — the portal’s own site.
What it does well
- Most below-threshold English work is published here, so one account covers a wide spread of buyers.
- Its search syntax is documented on the search page itself: a space means OR, a plus with no spaces means AND, and quotes mean an exact phrase. Blunt saved searches work well.
- Notices carry the buyer's own “suitable for SMEs” and VCSE flags, an explicit open/closed status line, a stated value where the buyer published one, and a procedure type that tells you whether any interested supplier may tender.
- Free, and usable without an account — you can read a notice before deciding whether the portal is worth registering on.
Where it falls short for a small bidder
- Alerts are keyword or category matches and nothing more. The portal does not know what you actually deliver, so an alert set on your marketing words will miss notices that describe the same work in a buyer's language.
- The notice is a signpost. The documents and the submission are usually on the buyer's own e-tendering portal, which means a second registration before you can bid.
- A published value is not always there, and where it is it is stated the buyer's way — so it is not safely comparable with a figure on another portal.
- It tells you nothing about what comparable contracts were awarded for. That history is not on Contracts Finder, and it is the part that decides whether a notice is worth an afternoon.
How many open notices from it we hold
41 open notices from Contracts Finder are in the snapshot behind this site, checked against the clock as this page was built.
Every notice below was still open when we last checked the official feeds, 2 days ago (11 November 2026 at 17:43 UTC).
We check every closing date each time this page is loaded, so a notice whose deadline has passed is never shown here — the dates you can see are still open. Check the official notice itself before you plan any bid work.
A notice being open is not the same as it being worth your time — and the portal has no view on that. What we add is the shortlist: the ones that plausibly suit a small supplier, each with a reason, plus what comparable contracts were actually awarded for.
The shortlist, not another feed
One email a week, every Tuesday: the live notices worth your time, each with the buyer, the closing date, the published value where the buyer published one, one line on why it fits a small supplier, and a link to the official notice. It is a subscription, billed monthly through Stripe, and you can cancel any time. We add no markup to anything.
The other portals we read
- SAM.gov
SAM.gov is the US federal contract opportunities site. What it does well, where a small bidder gets stuck, and the federal notices in our snapshot.
- Find a Tender
Find a Tender is the UK's national public-sector notice service. What it does well, where a small bidder gets stuck, and the notices we hold from it today.
- the local US feeds
Where New York City, Los Angeles and Illinois publish their own bids, what each does well, and why a small supplier ends up with three logins and no shortlist.
- The free sample brief and the price
The offer page: what the weekly brief contains, the founding rate, the FAQ, and the sample.