Contract expiry tracking
Track UK public contract expiry and renewal dates
A contract that expires in eighteen months is a bid you can still shape. One that expires next month is a bid someone else has already won. Contract expiry data is published — it is just scattered across notices that were never designed to be read as a pipeline.
In one line: A contract expiry tracker maps published UK award and contract-details notices to their end dates, so you can see which public contracts are running out, who holds them, and roughly when the replacement procurement will start.
How to find a UK contract's expiry date
Every step below can be done by hand and free of charge. Doing it once for a single contract takes a few minutes. Doing it continuously across a sector is where it stops being practical.
1. Find the award notice
Search Find a Tender for above-threshold awards and Contracts Finder for below-threshold ones. Search by buyer name, by CPV code, or by the supplier you think holds the contract. Award notices tell you who won, what they won, and what it was worth.
Award notices alone rarely give you a clean end date. They confirm the award happened — the dates usually sit in the notice published alongside or after them.
2. Open the contract details notice
Under the Procurement Act 2023, contracting authorities publish a contract details notice after entering into a public contract. This is the notice that carries the contract's start and end dates, and it is the single most useful record for expiry tracking.
Where a contract has been varied or extended, a contract change notice may have moved the end date. Always check for a later notice against the same contract before treating a date as final.
3. Work backwards to the recompete window
A buyer that wants continuity has to start the replacement procurement well before the incumbent's contract ends — often six to twelve months earlier for anything substantial, longer for complex services. Subtract that from the end date and you have the window in which the buyer is deciding what to buy.
That window, not the tender publication date, is when your positioning actually lands. It is also when preliminary market engagement tends to happen.
4. Repeat across every buyer that matters
The method is sound and the data is public. The problem is volume: notices are spread across Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI, plus the buyers' own e-procurement systems, with inconsistent naming and no shared contract identifier.
Tracking one contract is an afternoon. Tracking a sector is a full-time job, which is why most bidders either automate it or quietly stop doing it.
Three ways bidders track contract expiry
Each tier is a legitimate choice. Which one is right depends on how many buyers you track and how far ahead you need to see.
| Approach | What it does well | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| Official portalsFind a Tender, Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI | Free, authoritative, and the legal source of truth. Saved searches and email alerts are built in. | Each portal only knows its own notices. No contract-level view, no expiry timeline, and no way to see a buyer's whole estate in one place. |
| Alert aggregatorsTenders Direct, Tracker Intelligence, BidStats and similar | Pool notices from every portal into one feed with keyword and CPV filtering, so you stop maintaining five saved searches. | Built around notices as they publish. Strong for live opportunities, thinner on reconstructing which contracts expire when, and why. |
| Market intelligence platformsTussell, Stotles, Skim | Link awards, contract details and change notices into a contract-level history, so expiry and incumbency become queryable rather than manual. | Paid, and the depth is wasted if you only bid two or three times a year against buyers you already know well. |
Where Skim fits
Skim maps twenty years of UK and EU award data to renewal cycles, so you can see which contracts are expiring, who holds them now, and where the buyer's own pattern suggests a credible window for a challenger.
Every answer deep-links back into the source notice, so an expiry date on the page can be verified against the record it came from rather than taken on trust.
If you bid a handful of times a year against buyers you already know, the free portal method genuinely is enough. Skim is worth it when the tracking is continuous and the sector is wider than one person can hold.
The agents behind this
Frequently asked questions
Common questions
How do I find out when a UK government contract expires?
Find the contract details notice published after the award — under the Procurement Act 2023 this carries the contract's start and end dates. Search Find a Tender for above-threshold contracts and Contracts Finder for below-threshold ones, then check for any later contract change notice that may have extended the end date.
Is UK contract expiry data free to access?
Yes. Award notices and contract details notices are published on the official portals at no cost, and you can set up saved searches and email alerts for free. What you pay for with a commercial tool is the aggregation across portals and the contract-level history, not access to the underlying data.
How far before a contract expires does the recompete start?
It varies by size and complexity, but a buyer wanting continuity typically starts the replacement procurement six to twelve months before the incumbent's contract ends, and earlier for complex services. That earlier window is when preliminary market engagement usually happens and when supplier positioning has the most effect.
Can I tell who holds a contract now?
Usually, yes. The award notice names the winning supplier, and the contract details notice confirms the contract that followed. Where a contract has been extended or varied, later change notices show whether the same supplier is still in place.
What is the difference between an award notice and a contract details notice?
An award notice announces the outcome of a procurement and triggers the standstill period. A contract details notice is published once the contract has actually been entered into, and it is the notice that carries the contract dates. For expiry tracking, the contract details notice is the more useful of the two.
Sources
- Contract details notices — Procurement Act 2023 guidance
- Contract award notices and standstill — Procurement Act 2023 guidance
- Find a Tender
- Contracts Finder
- The Procurement Act 2023: a short guide for suppliers
Thresholds and notice requirements change. Check the primary sources above before relying on a figure. Last reviewed 7 August 2026.
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