Coverage

There is no single database of UK public contracts

This is the thing suppliers discover late, usually after losing work they never saw advertised. UK public procurement is published across four national portals, divided by nation and by contract value. Each has its own thresholds, its own search behaviour and its own blind spots. Watching one of them well still leaves most of the market invisible.

Below is what each portal actually carries, and just as importantly, what it does not.

Find a Tender Service

FTS

Geography: United Kingdom, all four nations
Value threshold: Above threshold, £135,018 upward for central government and £207,720 for councils and other sub-central bodies, both including VAT

What it covers

Higher value contracts from every part of the UK public sector. Replaced the EU's OJEU and TED notices for UK procurement from January 2021, so it is the closest thing to a single national record of significant public contracts.

What it misses

Anything below the published thresholds, which is the majority of contracts by number even though it is the minority by value. A council buying £60,000 of consultancy will not appear here.

Contracts Finder

Geography: England, plus UK wide central government
Value threshold: £12,000 upward for central government, £30,000 for wider public sector

What it covers

The mid and lower value work that never reaches Find a Tender. This is where most genuinely winnable SME contracts are published, and where early market engagement notices tend to appear.

What it misses

Devolved public bodies in Scotland and Wales, which publish to their own portals. Compliance is also uneven: some authorities publish late, some inconsistently.

Public Contracts Scotland

PCS

Geography: Scotland
Value threshold: Regulated procurements, with lower value quick quotes as well

What it covers

Scottish councils, NHS Scotland, Scottish Government and its agencies, universities and colleges. If you sell into Scotland, this portal carries opportunities that appear nowhere else.

What it misses

Everything outside Scotland. It is a national portal, not a UK one, and it is easy to assume Find a Tender covers Scotland fully when it only covers the higher value tier.

Sell2Wales

S2W

Geography: Wales
Value threshold: Regulated procurements and lower value opportunities

What it covers

Welsh local authorities, NHS Wales, Welsh Government, universities and housing associations, including smaller contracts aimed at Welsh suppliers.

What it misses

Everything outside Wales. Like PCS, it is frequently overlooked by suppliers who assume the UK wide portal is comprehensive.

Beyond live notices

The award history is where the forward view comes from

Live notices tell you what is open today. Award notices tell you what was bought, by whom, from whom, for how much, and until when. That last field is the valuable one, because a contract with a recorded end date is a re-tender with a date on it.

Tender Radar keeps that history rather than discarding it once a deadline passes. It is the difference between an alert service and an intelligence one.

What that history adds up to is published on the research page: how much work comes back to market in the next 18 months, by sector and by buyer, with the counting method and free downloads.

Award records held

295,000

Awarded by 8,000 buying organisations to 137,000 named suppliers. 170,000 of these contracts carry an end date, which is what the renewal radar reads.

Award history is drawn from the portals that publish structured award data. Live notice monitoring covers all four portals.

Optional extras

Four more sources, switched on per radar

Beyond UK procurement, Tender Radar can also watch new company incorporations, EU and US public tenders, and research and grant funding. Each is off by default, because each is essential to one kind of organisation and noise to the rest.

What each extra feed covers →

Companies House: New incorporations by area and SIC
TED: EU and EEA public tenders
SAM.gov: US federal opportunities
UKRI and grants: Research calls and grant funding

Common questions

Which database should you actually watch

Is Find a Tender enough on its own?

Only if you exclusively chase larger contracts. Find a Tender carries above threshold notices, which is a small share of contracts by number. Most opportunities a small or medium business can realistically win are published below that threshold, on Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland or Sell2Wales.

Do the portals duplicate each other?

Partly, and inconsistently. A high value Scottish contract may appear on both Public Contracts Scotland and Find a Tender, while a smaller one appears only on the former. Tender Radar de-duplicates across sources so the same opportunity does not reach you twice under two different reference numbers.

What about contracts that are never advertised?

Direct awards and call-offs from existing frameworks often involve no open competition at all. You cannot bid for those, but you can see them: they appear as award notices, which is how the renewal radar identifies who holds what and when it ends.

Do you cover EU and US opportunities?

They are available as optional extra feeds. Tenders Electronic Daily covers EU and EEA public procurement, and SAM.gov covers US federal opportunities. Both are switched off by default so they do not dilute a UK focused digest, and can be enabled per radar.

Watch all four without opening any of them

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