Two portals, one confusing handover
Contracts Finder vs Find a Tender: Which to Use
The UK government runs two national tender portals, and since the Procurement Act went live in February 2025 their roles have changed - leaving plenty of stale advice online. The short version: Find a Tender is now the primary home of new procurements; Contracts Finder still matters for legacy procurements and England's below-threshold notices; and a large slice of winnable work never reaches either.
What each portal is now for
Find a Tender (FTS) launched for high-value contracts after Brexit, but under the Procurement Act it became the central publication platform: new regulated procurements - above AND below threshold - publish their notices there through the Central Digital Platform, including pipeline, planned procurement and transparency notices that did not exist before 2025.
Contracts Finder remains live for procurements begun under the old rules (which run to completion under the previous regime - frameworks awarded before February 2025 still generate call-offs), and for England's below-threshold publication duty: contracts over £12,000 (central government) or £30,000 (wider public sector).
What neither portal shows you
Three gaps catch suppliers out. Devolved nations: Scotland publishes on Public Contracts Scotland and Wales on Sell2Wales - a Welsh council's £80k contract may never appear on the English-facing portals. Sub-threshold work: contracts under £12k/£30k have no national publication duty and live on regional portals like ProContract as invitation-only Quick Quotes. And buyer intent: by the time a notice is published, incumbent-aware competitors have often been positioning for months via pipeline notices, planning notices and expiring-contract data.
The practical consequence: "I check Contracts Finder weekly" - still the most common SME search habit - now misses new regulated procurements (wrong portal), everything devolved, and everything small. Coverage requires watching both national portals, both devolved portals, and the regional council systems simultaneously.
Setting up your search
On both portals: search by your real keywords AND your CPV codes (the classification buyers actually file under - keyword-only searches miss badly-titled notices), set email alerts, and check "planning" notice types, not just live tenders - early-engagement notices are your chance to shape a requirement before it is fixed.
Then accept the structural truth: five portals is too many tabs for a working business, which is why aggregation - pulling every source into one scored feed - is usually worth more than better searching.
Frequently asked questions
Is Contracts Finder being switched off?
Not currently - it remains live for legacy-regime procurements and England's below-threshold notices. New regulated procurements publish on Find a Tender.
Do I need accounts on both portals?
Registration is free on both and worth doing for alerts. But remember the gaps: devolved portals and regional council systems carry work that never reaches either national portal.
What are CPV codes and why do they matter?
Common Procurement Vocabulary codes classify every notice. Buyers file under them, so alert rules built on your trade's CPV codes catch tenders whose titles a keyword search would miss.
Or let one feed watch all of them
BidSquirrel ingests Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, the devolved portals and the ProContract council systems daily - and scores every notice against your business, so portal choice stops being your problem.