Documents and notices
Contract notice
Definition
A formal advertisement published on procurement portals announcing that a buyer intends to award a contract, inviting suppliers to express interest or submit tenders.
A contract notice is how public sector buyers announce procurement opportunities. For contracts above the procurement thresholds, publishing a contract notice is a legal requirement — it must appear on Find a Tender (for UK procurements) and may also appear on Contracts Finder, the Official Journal of the European Union (for EU-funded work), and the buyer's own portal.
The contract notice contains the essential information: what the buyer wants, the estimated value (sometimes), the procedure being used, the deadline for responses, and where to access the full tender documents. It is not the tender itself — it is the advertisement that tells you a tender exists.
Monitoring contract notices is the foundation of any bid pipeline. Every tender you have ever won started as a contract notice on a portal somewhere. The challenge for SMEs is coverage — notices appear across multiple portals, with varying formats and classification systems.
Why it matters for bidders
Missing a contract notice means missing the opportunity entirely. With thousands of notices published across multiple portals every week, systematic monitoring is the difference between a reactive pipeline (responding to whatever you happen to see) and a strategic one (pursuing the opportunities that match your strengths).
How Skim helps
Skim's Opportunity Discovery agent monitors contract notices across all major UK and EU procurement portals continuously, filtering and scoring them against your profile so you see the opportunities that matter — not the noise.
Related terms
Award notice
A public notice confirming that a contract has been awarded, naming the winning supplier, the contract value, and the number of tenders received.
Prior information notice(PIN)
An advance notice published by a buyer signalling their intention to procure in the future, typically issued months before the formal contract notice to alert the market and allow suppliers to prepare.
Contracts Finder
The UK government's free online portal where public sector buyers must advertise contract opportunities and publish award notices for contracts valued above £12,000 (central government) or £30,000 (sub-central authorities).
Find a Tender(FTS)
The UK's e-notification service that replaced the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) for UK procurements after Brexit, used for publishing contract notices above the international procurement thresholds.