ParseForge
UK Find a Tender Contracts Scraper
parseforge/ukcontracts-tenders-scraper
AutomationOther
Scrapes UK public sector tender notices from Find a Tender. Returns each notice as a flat row with title, description, buyer, value, deadline, and award status. Filter by keyword and export up to 1,000,000 tenders.
- Total users
- 2
- Monthly active
- 1
- Total runs
- 45
- Bookmarked
- 0
- Rating
- Not rated yet
- Last modified
- 12 days ago
Overview
UK Find a Tender Contracts Scraper
Scrape UK public sector tenders from Find a Tender, up to a million per run. Every notice comes with its title, description, buyer, value, deadline, and award status. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Find a Tender is the UK government's official portal for high-value public contracts, but its search is clunky and there is no bulk export. This Actor reads the public notice feed directly, filters by keyword, and returns each tender in one flat row. It is built for bid teams, market analysts, and suppliers who need the latest opportunities without manual copying.
| Who uses it | What they scrape UK Find a Tender for |
|---|---|
| Bid managers | Monitor new tenders for keywords relevant to their company's services |
| Market researchers | Analyse public procurement trends by sector or buyer |
| Sales teams | Build a pipeline of upcoming public sector contracts |
| Compliance officers | Track awarded contracts for audit or competitive intelligence |
What it does
This Actor collects UK public sector tender notices from Find a Tender, filtered by a keyword you provide, and returns each notice as a flat row.
- 🔍 Keyword filter: case-insensitive match on tender title and description, so you get only relevant notices.
- 📦 Bulk export: collect up to 1,000,000 tenders per run, then download as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
- 🕒 Always fresh: each run pulls the latest published notices from the live feed, no caching.
- 🧾 Flat schema: every tender is one row with consistent fields, ready for spreadsheets or databases.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with UK Find a Tender data
📈 Monitor new opportunities.
A bid manager runs the Actor daily with the keyword 'software' and receives a fresh CSV of every new tender mentioning software, ready for triage.
🧠 Analyse procurement trends.
A market researcher collects six months of tenders for 'construction' and pivots the data by buyer and value to spot spending patterns.
🤝 Build a sales pipeline.
A sales team scrapes all tenders above £100,000 in their region, then filters by deadline to prioritise upcoming bids.
🔎 Track competitors' wins.
A compliance officer searches for a rival company's name in awarded notices to understand their public sector footprint.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| Official source | Data comes straight from the UK government's Find a Tender portal, the authoritative record for high-value public contracts. |
| No API hassle | No registration, no OAuth, no rate-limit headaches. The Actor handles the public feed for you. |
| One row per tender | Every notice is flattened into a single record with title, description, buyer, value, deadline, and more. |
| Scale on demand | Set maxItems from 1 to 1,000,000 and let Apify's infrastructure handle the volume. |
How it compares
No other Store actor targets UK Find a Tender the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.
| UK Find a Tender Contracts Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When UK Find a Tender changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor with a single keyword, or leave it empty to return all recent tenders. The filter runs as each notice is read, so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.
A first run with the defaults:
{
"maxItems": 10
}
A larger pull:
{
"maxItems": 200
}
Pricing
Pay-per-result: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.
| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $0.85 |
| 1,000 results | $8.50 |
| 10,000 results | $85.00 |
New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.
Free users
Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.
Run it
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the UK Find a Tender Contracts Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.
Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.
Use with AI agents (MCP)
Give an AI agent live access to UK Find a Tender through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/ukcontracts-tenders-scraper"
Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no results?
Your keyword may be too specific or misspelled. Try a broader term, or leave the keyword empty to return all recent tenders. Also check that maxItems is at least 1.
The run takes a long time.
The Actor reads the feed sequentially. If you set maxItems very high, it will keep going until it reaches that number or the feed ends. Lower maxItems for faster runs.
Some fields are empty in the output.
Not every tender has a value, deadline, or award status. Empty fields are normal and reflect missing data on the source site.
I get an error about the website structure.
The Find a Tender site may have changed its layout. Report the issue on the Actor's Apify page, and we will update the scraper.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is Find a Tender? | Find a Tender is the UK government's official portal for public sector contracts above certain thresholds. It replaced the EU's TED system for UK buyers after Brexit. |
| Does this Actor require an API key or login? | No. It reads the public notice feed directly, so you only need an Apify account to run it. |
| Can I filter by buyer, value, or deadline? | The input schema currently supports only a keyword filter on title and description. For other filters, you can post-process the exported data in your own tools. |
| How many tenders can I collect in one run? | You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000. The Actor will stop once it reaches that number or the feed is exhausted. |
| What format is the output? | Each tender is a flat JSON object. You can download the dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from Apify. |
| How often should I run this Actor? | New notices are published daily. For most use cases, a daily or weekly schedule is sufficient. You can set up a recurring run in Apify. |
| Does the keyword search the full tender text? | It searches the title and description fields only, not attachments. If you need full-text search, consider downloading the notice PDFs separately. |
| Is this legal to scrape? | Find a Tender is a public government website with no robots.txt restrictions on the notice feed. Always review the site's terms of use and scrape responsibly. |
Related actors
Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.
🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.
⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Crown Commercial Service. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.
Input
| Field | Type | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| keyword | string | Optional. Case-insensitive substring filter applied to each tender's title and description (for example software, catering, construction). Leave empty to return all recent tenders. | not set |
| maxItems | integer | Maximum number of tenders to collect per run. | 10 |
Pricing
from $7.69 per 1,000 results
| Charged for | What it is | Price each |
|---|---|---|
| result | Single result in the default dataset. | $0.00769 to $0.0085 |
Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.
API
One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~ukcontracts-tenders-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"helloWorld": 123
}' Examples
Input that runs as-is.
{
"helloWorld": 123
} Reviews
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Issues
We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.
Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.
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