Data last verified: 10 November 2026. Figures re-checked against their primary sources under the Whito rolling re-verification programme.
Finding
On 10 November 2026, Whito's twice-daily collection from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender held 1,892 open UK public contract notices; 1,322 closed within 30 days, only 232 of those stated a value of £100,000 or less, and 796 (60%) closed at 12 noon.
Source: Whito, whito.co.uk/research/uk-open-public-contracts-november-2026, 2026-11-10. Free to quote with a link to this page.
Last Updated on November 13, 2026
Read a short summary
General summary
On 10 November 2026 Whito read 1,892 open contract notices from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, the two GOV.UK services where public buyers post work. 1,322 of the 1,892 close within 30 days. Only 232 of those state a value of £100,000 or less. And 796 of them, 60%, close at exactly 12 noon.
Bullet points
- 1,892 open public contract notices read on 10 November 2026.
- 497 came from Contracts Finder and 1,395 from Find a Tender.
- 1,322 close within 30 days.
- Only 232 of those state a value of £100,000 or less.
- 796 of them, 60%, close at exactly 12 noon.
Basic explainer
Councils, NHS trusts and government departments buy work from businesses. They post what they want on two government websites, and firms can bid for it. Each posting is called a contract notice. Whito read every open notice on one morning to see what a small UK business could bid for this month. Most close within 30 days, and few of those are small contracts.
These summaries were written with AI from this page only. The full page below is the record.
Read: 10 November 2026. 1,892 open contract notices from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, the two GOV.UK services where public buyers post work. Every figure comes from what the buyers entered themselves.
Most small firms that look at public sector work give up on the first search. They see huge frameworks, ten-year terms and values in the millions, and decide it is not for them.
Some of that is true. But the way to read the list is not “how big is it”. It is “what can I actually bid for this month”.
So we read every open notice on one morning. 1,322 of the 1,892 close within 30 days. Only 232 of those state a value of £100,000 or less. And 796 of them, 60%, close at exactly 12 noon.
What we read
Whito’s Public Contract Finder collects open notices from both services twice a day. On 10 November 2026 it held 1,892 open contract notices: 497 from Contracts Finder and 1,395 from Find a Tender. They came from more than 850 different buyers, including councils, NHS trusts, housing associations, universities and government departments.
For each notice we kept the title, the buyer, what the contract is for, the regions named, the value the buyer gave, the closing date and time, and whether the buyer marked it as suitable for small firms. We count notices, not contracts. A few contracts appear more than once.
Most open notices close within a month
1,322 notices (70%) close within 30 days. 351 close within seven days. These are the real, live bids.
The other 570 stay open for longer. Most are standing supplier lists: a buyer keeps a list of approved firms for several years and hands out work from it. 471 of the 570 do not close until 2027 or later. Getting on one does not win you work by itself, but buyers can only use firms that are on it.
What buyers want: notices closing within 30 days
We sort each notice into one of 13 plain kinds of work, using the codes buyers attach to say what a contract is for. A notice with several codes can sit in more than one group, so the rows add up to more than 1,322. 380 notices do.
| Kind of work | Closing within 30 days | Middle stated value | Open for longer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building and construction | 342 | £600,000 | 170 |
| Business services, marketing and research | 258 | £240,000 | 102 |
| Health and social care | 235 | £1.8m | 103 |
| Goods, equipment and everything else | 205 | £420,000 | 73 |
| Architects, engineers and surveyors | 154 | £420,000 | 75 |
| Cleaning, waste and grounds | 149 | £434,000 | 62 |
| Repairs, maintenance and installation | 142 | £518,000 | 57 |
| IT, software and telecoms | 137 | £365,700 | 59 |
| Transport, taxis and vehicles | 69 | £1.2m | 64 |
| Education and training | 69 | £560,000 | 40 |
| Property, insurance and finance | 47 | £3m | 36 |
| Energy, fuel and utilities | 42 | £360,000 | 36 |
| Food, catering and hospitality | 34 | £3.2m | 21 |
Building work is the biggest group. Business services, which includes marketing, research, consultancy and printing, is second and has the lowest middle value, at £240,000.
How big the contracts are
The value is the buyer’s own figure for the whole contract, over its full term. Some include VAT and some do not. For a supplier list it is often the total for every supplier on the list.
| Stated value | Notices closing within 30 days | Marked suitable for small firms |
|---|---|---|
| Under £30,000 | 50 | 44 |
| £30,000 to £100,000 | 182 | 122 |
| Over £100,000 to £1m | 510 | 354 |
| Over £1m to £10m | 324 | 220 |
| Over £10m | 164 | 117 |
| No value given | 84 | – |
| £1 (a placeholder) | 8 | – |
The middle stated value of the 1,230 that give a real figure is £540,000. Small jobs are rare on these services because buyers only have to advertise above a set level: £12,000 for central government and £30,000 for other public bodies.
The noon cliff
The noon cliff is our name for the hour when most UK public tenders shut. Of the 1,322 notices closing within 30 days, 796 (60%) close at exactly 12 noon. The next most common time, 5pm, covers 118.
Mondays and Fridays are the busiest closing days: 379 notices close on a Monday and 361 on a Friday. A bid that closes at noon on a Monday is really due on the Friday before, unless you plan to finish it over the weekend.
The small-firm tick
Both services let a buyer tick a box saying a contract is suitable for small and medium-sized firms. The small-firm tick means very different things on the two services.
- On Contracts Finder, 470 of 497 open notices (95%) carry the tick, including contracts worth tens of millions.
- On Find a Tender, 900 of 1,395 (65%) do.
The tick is the buyer’s own opinion. It does not change the rules, the size of the job or the proof you need. Read the requirements in the notice itself.
Where the work is
421 of the 1,322 notices closing within 30 days set no region at all, so any UK firm can look at them. The rest name one or more regions.
| Region | Notices naming this region | Notices naming only this region |
|---|---|---|
| South East | 149 | 80 |
| London | 145 | 75 |
| East Midlands | 139 | 71 |
| North West | 138 | 71 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 134 | 66 |
| East of England | 134 | 65 |
| South West | 123 | 55 |
| Wales | 113 | 100 |
| West Midlands | 107 | 46 |
| Scotland | 107 | 89 |
| North East | 101 | 34 |
| Northern Ireland | 55 | 45 |
Wales and Scotland have the most notices tied to one region alone. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also run their own contract sites, which this collection does not read.
What this does not prove
- This is one morning. Notices open and close every day. We will publish the next reading as a new dated study and keep this one.
- From Find a Tender we hold tender notices published or updated since 26 September 2026. An older tender that was never updated may be missing.
- Values, dates, regions and the small-firm tick are as the buyers entered them. Some will be wrong.
- We count notices. 16 notices repeat another notice from the same buyer on the same service, and 3 contracts appear on both services.
- Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish contract sites, and buyers’ own portals, are not included.
What to do with this
Public sector work is a Build stage channel. It suits a business with a clear offer, a few case studies and the time to write bids. It is not a quick fix for a quiet month.
- Search by your kind of work and region in the Public Contract Finder. Start with notices closing within 30 days.
- Treat noon on the closing day as too late. Aim to submit the working day before.
- Ignore the small-firm tick. Read what the buyer asks for: insurance, accreditations, turnover and past work.
- If a list stays open for years, apply to join it. That is often the easiest way in.
- When you lose a bid, look up the award notice later to see who won and for how much. Our study on how long public buyers take to award contracts shows when to expect it.
Download the data
All 1,892 open notices with the notice ID, source, title, buyer, kind of work, regions, value, closing time, small-firm and charity ticks and a link to the official notice: whito-open-uk-public-contracts-2026-11-10.csv. Sources: Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, read 10 November 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Whito is not part of, or endorsed by, Contracts Finder, Find a Tender or any government body. Free to reuse with a link to this page.
Cite this research
Whito Research (2026). What UK Public Buyers Want Right Now: 1,892 Open Contracts Read. Whito. https://whito.co.uk/research/uk-open-public-contracts-november-2026/
Key finding: On 10 November 2026, Whito’s twice-daily collection from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender held 1,892 open UK public contract notices; 1,322 closed within 30 days, only 232 of those stated a value of £100,000 or less, and 796 (60%) closed at 12 noon.
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