Find a Tender vs Contracts Finder: What Small Businesses Need To Know

If you have searched for government contracts, you have probably come across both Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Both are UK government procurement portals. Both publish public contract notices. But they serve different purposes, and checking only one will leave gaps in what you see.

What is Find a Tender?

Find a Tender Service (FTS) is the UK's statutory procurement portal, launched after Brexit to replace the EU's Official Journal (OJEU) system. Public bodies are legally required to publish above-threshold contracts on FTS. If a council, NHS trust, central government department or other public buyer is tendering something above the relevant procurement value threshold, the notice must appear on Find a Tender.

FTS publishes prior information notices (advance signals of upcoming contracts), contract notices (live opportunities open for response), and contract award notices (who won and for how much). The award notices are particularly useful for understanding what buyers in your sector have purchased recently.

What is Contracts Finder?

Contracts Finder is a separate UK government platform. It covers a broader range of contracts, including lower-value opportunities that are either required or voluntary to publish. Central government buyers must publish contracts above £10,000. Local authorities must publish above £25,000.

Contracts Finder is also a practical source for award notices — published details of contracts already awarded, showing who won, at what value, and from which buyer. Tracking award notices helps you understand when similar contracts are likely to come up again.

What is actually different between them

The key differences in practice:

• Value threshold — FTS covers above-threshold contracts. Contracts Finder covers lower-value contracts too.
• Legal basis — FTS publication is a statutory requirement above thresholds. Contracts Finder has lower mandatory thresholds and also captures voluntary publications.
• Search interface — the two portals have different search tools. A search on one will not return results from the other.
• Notice overlap — some contracts appear on both portals. Many appear on only one. You cannot assume coverage from a single portal.

Why small firms need to check both

The contracts that are realistically winnable for a small business often sit at the lower end of the value range — the kind that appears on Contracts Finder but may not reach the FTS threshold. Missing Contracts Finder means missing a significant portion of the relevant market.

Conversely, FTS is where larger and longer contracts sit. If your firm can handle higher-value work, FTS is essential.

TenderHawk monitors supported public contract sources. You do not need to know which one to check — we watch them and only send an alert when something matches your profile.