The below-threshold work that never reaches Find a Tender

When the Procurement Act went live in February 2025, above- and below-threshold notices for new UK procurements consolidated onto Find a Tender. The consolidation had an exception, and the exception is large enough to matter to anyone selling north of the border.

Scotland: a separate regime, not a subset

Procurement is devolved. Scotland did not adopt the Procurement Act 2023 — it operates under its own regulations and the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014. Scottish above-threshold notices do reach Find a Tender, so a UK-wide search sees the large contracts. Scottish below-threshold notices continue to publish on Public Contracts Scotland, and only there.

Scotland also runs a lower regulated floor than the UK advertising duties: £50,000 for goods and services and £2m for works, beneath which a lighter process applies. Quick quotes below that line are common, frequent, and invisible to anyone not registered on the portal.

Wales: an additional layer, not a replacement

Wales follows the Procurement Act, so Welsh above- and below-threshold notices publish to Find a Tender. But Sell2Wales continues to operate as the Welsh national portal, and carries work — particularly smaller, local and community-benefit contracts — that either appears there first or does not generate a UK-wide notice at all.

Welsh procurement also carries policy weight that changes who wins: the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act pushes socially responsible outcomes and local benefit into evaluation. A bid written for an English buyer, submitted unchanged in Wales, tends to score badly on exactly the criteria that decide it.

What the split looks like in practice

Why below threshold is worth the effort

• The competition is thinner. Large suppliers frequently ignore work below their minimum contract size.
• The process is lighter — often a quote or a short form rather than a full tender response.
• Decisions are faster, because the regulated timescales do not apply.
• It builds a track record with a buyer. A £40,000 contract delivered well is the reference that wins the £400,000 one.
• It is where new entrants get in. Above threshold, incumbency and framework places dominate.

Covering it properly

1. Register directly on Public Contracts Scotland if you sell in Scotland. There is no substitute and no aggregator that removes the need.
2. Register on Sell2Wales for Welsh work, and read the community-benefit requirements before you write anything.
3. Keep your UK-wide feed for above-threshold and English work — it is genuinely good at that now.
4. Add the portals your specific buyers use. Councils vary, and the portal usually carries the quick quotes.
5. Set your value floor honestly. If you will take a £15,000 job, monitor for it; if you will not, filter it out and stop reading.

TenderGraph carries Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales alongside the UK-wide services, and publishes what each source covers and from what value — including the categories that no platform can reach, because a coverage claim you cannot check is just a claim.