Where to Actually Find Contracts: Find a Tender Service UK vs Contracts Finder

Somewhere right now, a contract your business is fully capable of delivering is sitting live on a public portal. Nobody is going to email you about it. Nobody is going to call.

If you are not checking the right place, you will simply never see it, and it will be awarded to a business that happened to look.

Most first time bidders make the same mistake here. They hear about one portal, bookmark it, check it occasionally, and assume they are covering the market. They are not. There are two main platforms doing very different jobs, and missing one of them means missing a meaningful share of everything available to you.

Two Platforms, Not One

Find A Tender Service: The Higher Value Platform

Find a Tender Service, usually shortened to FTS, is the UK government's centralised platform for publishing procurement notices above a set financial threshold. It replaced the old EU wide OJEU notice system after Brexit, and every contracting authority in the UK is legally required to publish qualifying opportunities here.

FTS tends to carry larger, more formal contracts. Central government departments, major NHS trusts, large local authority frameworks, and significant infrastructure or services contracts. The higher financial threshold means you will see fewer notices here than on the platform we cover next, but the ones you do see are often higher value and longer term.

The publication thresholds are reviewed and updated periodically by the Cabinet Office, so rather than relying on a fixed figure, always check the current threshold directly on the FTS website before assuming a contract sits above or below it.

Contracts Finder: The Wider Net

Contracts Finder covers procurement opportunities below the FTS threshold, and this is where the majority of SME sized contracts actually live. Local councils, smaller NHS bodies, schools, police forces, and a huge range of public sector organisations publish here.

If FTS is where the largest contracts surface, Contracts Finder is where the volume is. For most SMEs in construction, facilities management, cleaning, security, and similar sectors, this platform is genuinely the more relevant one to check regularly, not the one with the bigger name recognition.

	Find a Tender Service	Contracts Finder
Contract value	Above the published threshold	Below the published threshold
Typical buyers	Central government, major NHS trusts, large frameworks	Councils, schools, smaller NHS bodies, police, wider public sector
Volume of notices	Lower, but higher value contracts	Higher volume, more accessible for SMEs
Legal publication requirement	Mandatory for qualifying contracts	Mandatory for qualifying contracts

How To Actually Use Both Platforms Properly

Checking a portal once and giving up is almost as unproductive as never checking at all. Here is a simple, repeatable routine.

First, register on both platforms, it takes minutes and costs nothing. Second, set up saved search alerts using keywords specific to your sector and service, not generic terms that flood your inbox with irrelevant results. Third, filter by region if your delivery capacity is local, most SMEs waste time reviewing notices for contracts they could never realistically deliver at distance. Fourth, check both platforms on a fixed schedule, weekly at minimum, because new notices are published continuously and closing dates arrive faster than most business owners expect.

Do Not Stop At These Two

FTS and Contracts Finder cover the majority of public sector opportunities, but a genuinely thorough search also includes sector specific and regional sources. Many local authorities still run their own supplier portals alongside Contracts Finder. NHS Supply Chain runs sector specific frameworks. Defence Contracts Online covers Ministry of Defence opportunities. Regional procurement hubs, particularly in London and the devolved nations, sometimes list opportunities before they reach the national platforms.

None of this needs to happen every day. A structured weekly routine across the main platforms, supplemented by a monthly check of your specific sector sources, is enough to make sure the right contract does not pass you by simply because you were not looking in the right place at the right time.

The businesses winning consistently are rarely the ones with the best price. They are frequently just the ones who actually saw the opportunity in time to prepare a proper response.

Finding The Contract Is Only The First Step

Seeing the opportunity is where everything starts, but it is not where it ends. Once you find a live tender that genuinely fits your business, the real work, and the real scoring, begins with how well you respond to it.

Not sure where your next contract actually lives?

We will scan live opportunities across FTS, Contracts Finder, and the sector specific sources most businesses miss, and tell you honestly which ones are genuinely worth pursuing. No obligation. No sales pitch.

Request your free tender opportunity scan

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