Contract Notice
The formal advertisement of a procurement opportunity, published on Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, Sell2Wales, or PCS.
Definition
A contract notice is the formal advertisement of a procurement opportunity, published on the relevant UK portal: Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, Sell2Wales, or Public Contracts Scotland. It sets out the nature of the contract, the estimated value, the deadline for expressions of interest or tender submission, and the contact details for the buying authority. Under the Procurement Act 2023, contract notices are designated as Tender Notices and must be published on the new central digital platform.
How it works in practice
The contract notice is the starting gun for most public procurement processes. It contains the CPV Code that classifies the requirement, the procurement procedure (Open, Restricted, Competitive Dialogue, Innovation Partnership), the estimated contract value and duration, the deadline for response, the location of delivery, and links to the full tender documents. The legal weight of the notice is significant: details set out in the notice (procedure, deadline, evaluation criteria) cannot be materially changed during the procurement without re-publishing. Under PCR 2015, contract notices for contracts above the relevant threshold had to be published on Find a Tender (post-Brexit) or OJEU (pre-Brexit). The Procurement Act 2023 introduces a unified notice structure (Tender Notice, Award Notice, Pipeline Notice, and others) all hosted on a central digital platform. Suppliers should treat the contract notice as the single authoritative summary of the opportunity: any divergence between the notice and the tender documents should be raised as a clarification before the tender deadline rather than after submission. KimonBids monitors all four UK portals and surfaces contract notices matching saved alert criteria so suppliers see every relevant opportunity.
Common questions
Where are UK contract notices published?
Contracts above the FTS threshold are published on Find a Tender. Contracts above £12,000 by central government and £25,000 by other bodies are published on Contracts Finder. Welsh public sector contracts are published on Sell2Wales; Scottish public sector contracts on Public Contracts Scotland. Many opportunities are cross-posted across portals.
How long is a contract notice open for response?
For Open procedure above the FTS threshold the minimum is 35 days (reduced to 30 if a Prior Information Notice was published, 15 in extreme urgency). For Restricted procedure the minimum at SQ stage is 30 days. Below-threshold contracts on Contracts Finder typically run 14 to 28 days. The notice itself states the deadline.
Can the buyer change the contract notice after publication?
Minor clarifications are routine and are issued as bidder Q&A on the portal. Material changes (changes to scope, value, procedure, or evaluation criteria) require re-publication and a fresh response window. Material changes after the deadline without re-publication would be grounds for a procurement challenge.