Nexus Tools / Data guides

UK public tenders as JSON or CSV: Find a Tender and Contracts Finder OCDS APIs, a Python example, and a ready-made dataset

How to read UK procurement notices from the two official OCDS APIs yourself, what trips people up (a broken stages filter, many releases per notice, rate limits), and when a normalized feed is worth paying for.

Updated: November 2026. API behaviour below was tested live on 4 November 2026.

The short version

• The UK has two official notice services, each with a free, key-less API that returns OCDS (Open Contracting Data Standard) release packages as JSON: Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Both are run by the Cabinet Office and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• They differ in URL, filters, rate-limit behaviour and in how a notice is represented. Neither can filter by CPV, keyword or value, so you filter after download.
• If you want one flat schema across both, de-duplication and CPV labels without maintaining a script, we run an Apify Actor for that. Real samples are at the bottom.

1. The two APIs

Minimal requests (both anonymous):

curl -s "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/api/1.0/ocdsReleasePackages?limit=2&updatedFrom=2026-11-04T00:00:00"

curl -s "https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Published/Notices/OCDS/Search?stages=tender&limit=2&publishedFrom=2026-11-04T00:00:00"

Both return a release package with the same envelope: uri, version ("1.1"), extensions, publishedDate, publisher (Cabinet Office), license (the OGL v3.0 URL), publicationPolicy, releases and links. Releases come newest first.

Find a Tender: what we found

• The stages filter is not usable for Procurement Act notices. In our test (releases updated since 3 November 2026, 100 returned) stages=tender returned 15 releases, none of them with a UK notice type, so it only matches notices of the older regime. stages=tender,award returned 200 with zero releases. Do not rely on it; filter client-side.
• Every change is a release, so one notice appears many times. In that 100-release page the tags were: 49 award,contract, 21 tender, 9 awardUpdate,contractUpdate, 8 planning, 8 tenderUpdate, 3 planningUpdate, 2 tenderCancellation. Only 26 of the 100 were UK4 tender notices.
• The notice type is in tender.documents[].noticeType (UK4 = tender notice). In our 100-release page, 71 releases had no notice type in tender.documents (including old-regime ones), so do not assume it is always there.
• Values: a tender release we inspected had only amountGross (no amount) in tender.value and in the lot value. Handle both.
• CPV codes are in tender.items[].additionalClassifications with scheme: "CPV"; the deadline is tender.tenderPeriod.endDate; regions are NUTS codes (UKK12) in items[].deliveryAddresses[].region.
• Party records contain contact points (names, e-mail, phone) in parties[].contactPoint. If you store the raw JSON, decide whether you want that personal data.
• Errors are readable: limit=500 gives 400 with "'limit' must not exceed the maximum value"; a malformed date gives "'updatedFrom' must be in the correct format". Unknown parameters are rejected with the list of allowed ones, according to the docs.

Contracts Finder: what we found

• stages works server-side. Without it the feed is dominated by award notices (86 of the 100 releases we pulled from 4 November were award or award update), so always pass the stage you want.
• Release ids look like <notice uuid>-<version number> and the ocid starts ocds-b5fd17-. The same notice appears once per edit, so keep the highest version per uuid.
• The main CPV code is in tender.classification, further codes in tender.additionalClassifications. Value is in tender.value (amount, currency), the deadline in tender.tenderPeriod.endDate.
• Errors use a different shape from Find a Tender: {"code": 3200, "message": "Incorrect request [limit must be a number greater than 0 and maximum is 100]", ...}.
• Rate limit: the docs say 403 and to wait five minutes. During exploratory scanning we hit a 429 with Retry-After: 120 after a handful of requests spaced about a second apart; spacing requests by 2.5 seconds ran ten consecutive pages without a limit. Treat 403, 429 and 503 as "stop and wait".
• Published data can be odd: in one award notice we looked at, the buyer's name was a 32-character hash rather than an organisation name.

2. DIY: both sources to CSV in Python

Tested against both live APIs on 4 November 2026: it returned 91 tender releases (81 from Find a Tender, 10 from Contracts Finder) from the last 24 hours, capped at 5 pages per source. Needs pip install requests. Put a real contact address in the User-Agent.

import csv
import time
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone

import requests

HEADERS = {"User-Agent": "my-tender-script/1.0 (you@example.com)"}  # identify yourself
FTS = "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/api/1.0/ocdsReleasePackages"
CF = "https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Published/Notices/OCDS/Search"


def pages(url, params, pause, max_pages=5):
    """Follow links.next (a ready-made URL with the cursor) and obey Retry-After on 429/503."""
    next_url, next_params = url, params
    for _ in range(max_pages):
        for attempt in range(4):
            r = requests.get(next_url, params=next_params, headers=HEADERS, timeout=60)
            if r.status_code in (429, 503):
                time.sleep(int(r.headers.get("Retry-After", 10)) + 1)
                continue
            if r.status_code == 403:  # Contracts Finder says: wait 5 minutes
                raise RuntimeError("rate limited (403), stop and retry in 5+ minutes")
            r.raise_for_status()
            break
        else:
            raise RuntimeError("service unavailable")
        data = r.json()
        yield from data["releases"]
        next_url, next_params = data.get("links", {}).get("next"), None
        if not next_url:
            return
        time.sleep(pause)


def row(source, rel):
    t = rel.get("tender", {})
    value = t.get("value") or {}
    cpvs = [t.get("classification")] + (t.get("additionalClassifications") or [])  # Contracts Finder
    for item in t.get("items", []):                                                 # Find a Tender
        cpvs += item.get("additionalClassifications") or []
    cpv = [c["id"] for c in cpvs if c and c.get("scheme") == "CPV"]
    return {
        "source": source,
        "id": rel["id"],
        "published": rel["date"][:10],
        "title": t.get("title"),
        "buyer": (rel.get("buyer") or {}).get("name"),
        "cpv": ";".join(dict.fromkeys(cpv)),
        "value": value.get("amount", value.get("amountGross")),  # Find a Tender may give only amountGross
        "currency": value.get("currency"),
        "deadline": (t.get("tenderPeriod") or {}).get("endDate"),
    }


since = (datetime.now(timezone.utc) - timedelta(days=1)).strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S")
rows = []

# Find a Tender: no usable `stages` filter, so keep releases whose tender document is a UK4 tender notice.
for rel in pages(FTS, {"limit": 100, "updatedFrom": since}, pause=1.2):
    docs = rel.get("tender", {}).get("documents", [])
    if any(d.get("noticeType") == "UK4" for d in docs):
        rows.append(row("find-a-tender", rel))

# Contracts Finder: `stages=tender` works server-side. Use a longer pause between pages.
for rel in pages(CF, {"stages": "tender", "limit": 100, "publishedFrom": since}, pause=2.5):
    rows.append(row("contracts-finder", rel))

with open("uk_tenders.csv", "w", newline="", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    w = csv.DictWriter(f, fieldnames=rows[0].keys())
    w.writeheader()
    w.writerows(rows)
print(len(rows), "tender releases")

It does not de-duplicate notices published on both services, does not keep only the latest Contracts Finder version per notice, and does not handle award notices or values in other shapes. That is the part that grows.

3. When the Actor saves time

The Apify Actor UK Public Tenders (by Nexus Scrapers) reads both official APIs and returns one schema. It pays off when you would otherwise maintain the glue code above:

• Both sources, one record per procurement notice. Notices found on both services are merged (the Find a Tender record wins, the other link is kept in ukAlsoPublishedOn); only the newest version of each Contracts Finder notice is kept.
• Normalized schema v1, the same one our TED Actor uses: buyer object, dates, money as {amount, currency}, unified notice types (UK codes like UK4, UK6 kept in noticeTypeCode), null instead of missing keys. UK-only extras are prefixed uk (OCDS process id, regions, SME/VCSE suitability, framework flag, OCDS link).
• Filters the APIs lack: keyword, CPV prefix, notice types, value band, region, applied by the Actor on your behalf, up to 10,000 results per run. For rare filters over long periods it reads at most 60 pages per source and says so when it stops early.
• CPV codes with official labels in any of the 24 EU languages; main CPV and division name.
• Award view with winning suppliers, awarded value and award date.
• No contact details: names, e-mails and phone numbers from party records are not copied.
• Scheduling and integrations through Apify (daily runs, Slack, e-mail, Google Sheets, webhooks, API, MCP); export as JSON, CSV or Excel. Rate-limit handling and back-off are built in.

Pricing is pay per result: $0.003 per result at the time of writing; the Actor page shows the current price.

What it does not do: it does not return tender documents (only notice data and links), does not cover Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales or eSourcing NI below-threshold notices, and does not give lot-level detail. For a one-off export of a single stage, the script above is enough.

4. Real sample: 20 normalized records

These 20 records were produced on 4 November 2026 by running the Actor's own source and normalizer code locally against the live APIs, without the Apify platform: 12 tender notices (latest three days, 6 from each service) and 8 award notices (latest ten days, 4 from each service), merged and de-duplicated like the Actor does. They are the newest matches, not hand-picked. One notice contained an organisation e-mail address inside its free-text description; we replaced it with [email removed]. Everything else is unchanged.

Download: sample.json (full records, UTF-8) and sample.csv (flattened: lists joined with | , opens in Excel). Free to use under the licence in section 5.

FTS = Find a Tender, CF = Contracts Finder. Value is the estimated value for tenders and the awarded value for awards (GBP); blank when the notice states none.

One Find a Tender record in full (description shortened):

{
  "schemaVersion": "1.0",
  "source": "find-a-tender",
  "sourceId": "104923-2026",
  "url": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/104923-2026",
  "documentUrls": {
    "html": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/104923-2026",
    "pdf": null,
    "xml": null
  },
  "noticeType": "contract-notice",
  "noticeTypeCode": "UK4",
  "procedureType": "open",
  "contractNature": "works",
  "title": "Stoke Road, Henlade",
  "description": "This procurement exercise is to support the delivery of 39 mixed-tenure homes on a greenfield site off Stoke Road, Henlade TA3 5FF, south of Henlade Close (Pha…",
  "language": "en",
  "buyer": {
    "name": "Stonewater Limited",
    "country": "GB",
    "city": "Leicester",
    "nutsCode": "UKF22",
    "buyerType": "regional-or-local-authority"
  },
  "cpvCodes": [
    {
      "code": "45000000",
      "label": "Construction work"
    }
  ],
  "mainCpv": "45000000",
  "mainCpvDivision": "Construction work",
  "estimatedValue": {
    "amount": 10300000,
    "currency": "GBP"
  },
  "lots": 1,
  "publicationDate": "2026-11-04",
  "submissionDeadline": "2026-12-16T17:00:00+00:00",
  "awardInfo": null,
  "placeOfPerformance": {
    "country": "GB",
    "city": null,
    "nutsCode": "UKK12"
  },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-11-04T21:56:10+00:00",
  "ukOcid": "ocds-h6vhtk-07b368",
  "ukBuyerReference": "00378-DVP",
  "ukProcurementMethodDetails": "Open procedure",
  "ukRegions": [
    "South West"
  ],
  "ukAboveThreshold": true,
  "ukFramework": null,
  "ukSuitability": {
    "sme": true,
    "vcse": true
  },
  "ukOcdsUrl": "https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/api/1.0/ocdsReleasePackages/104923-2026",
  "ukAlsoPublishedOn": []
}

5. Data licence and attribution

Every release package carries a license field pointing to the Open Government Licence v3.0. Under the OGL you may copy, publish, distribute, adapt and use the information commercially, as long as you acknowledge the source and include the attribution statement. Use the standard wording: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0." Name the publisher too (Cabinet Office, Find a Tender / Contracts Finder). The OGL does not cover personal data protected by data protection law, and notices can include names and contact details, so handle those in line with UK GDPR. CPV labels in the sample come from the EU's CPV 2008 vocabulary (Regulation (EC) No 213/2008), published by the Publications Office of the European Union. This is a summary, not legal advice; read the licence for the exact terms.

Links

• UK Public Tenders Actor on Apify
• The same guide for EU tenders (TED)
• Find a Tender API documentation and Contracts Finder API documentation