UK tender portals

A tender portal is an online platform where public sector buyers publish contract opportunities and, in most cases, run the bidding process. It's how councils, NHS trusts, government departments and other public bodies advertise what they need to buy, invite suppliers to tender, and record who won. There is no single portal in the UK that carries everything: national notice services sit alongside devolved-nation portals and dozens of buyer-run e-sourcing systems.

Find a Tender (FTS) is the UK's official notice service under the Procurement Act 2023. For procurements starting on or after 24 February 2025, notices are published on FTS regardless of value, and there is no ongoing requirement to also publish on Contracts Finder.

Contracts Finder covered below-threshold contracts in England under the previous rules (PCR 2015). It still hosts legacy procurements that started before February 2025, but new procurements no longer need to appear there.

The Central Digital Platform (CDP) is the government hub for supplier information under the Procurement Act 2023. Suppliers register once, share core data across procurements, and access Find a Tender through the same login. It removes the need to re-submit company details in every tender. Buyers still run individual bids on their own e-sourcing systems, but notices, supplier data and award transparency all flow through the CDP.

An e-sourcing portal is the software a buyer uses to run a live procurement: hosting tender documents, taking supplier questions, collecting bids and managing evaluation. In-tend, ProContract, Delta and Jaggaer are the main commercial systems used across UK councils, NHS trusts and central government. Each buyer picks one, so suppliers often register on several to reach the same market. Notices still publish through Find a Tender, but the bid itself is submitted in the buyer's chosen system.

Four broad categories:

• National notice services (Find a Tender for new procurements, Contracts Finder for legacy ones) publish opportunities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Devolved-nation portals (Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI) cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland under their own rules
• Regional and buyer-group portals (London Tenders Portal, YORtender, The Chest) aggregate opportunities from clusters of councils
• Buyer-run e-sourcing systems (In-tend, ProContract, Delta, Jaggaer) host the actual bidding process

Not officially. Find a Tender carries every new UK notice from 24 February 2025, but it doesn't include legacy procurements still running on Contracts Finder, below-threshold quotations that don't require publication, Scottish notices under a separate regime, or the buyer-specific e-sourcing systems where much of the process happens. Stotles pulls notices from 100+ procurement portals into one search, alongside live pre-tender notices, contract awards and buyer spend.

For procurements starting on or after 24 February 2025, in-scope authorities under the Procurement Act 2023 must publish notices on Find a Tender regardless of value, and Contracts Finder is no longer required. Scotland runs a separate regime through Public Contracts Scotland. Wales publishes to Sell2Wales alongside FTS. Some contract types sit outside the rules, and buyers can still run below-threshold quotations without a public notice, so absence from a portal doesn't mean absence of opportunity.