Bearings open API: funding, support and contracts data for the North West

Bearings is free, and so is its data: public data should be free and democratised. The API is read-only, needs no key or sign-up, and works from any website (CORS open). It serves exactly what the site shows, rebuilt every weekday morning: 2,041 live opportunities for businesses and organisations in the North West (Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria) and the UK-wide and international ones open to them.

Terms: free to use, including commercially. Please credit Bearings and send people to the provider's own page (each item's url). Always check eligibility and deadlines with the provider.

Fair use: up to 60 requests a minute from each caller (more gets a 429; wait a minute). Answers are cached for 5 minutes and the data changes once each weekday morning, so there is no need to poll more often. For everything at once, use digest.json.

Endpoints

GET	What it returns
`https://getbearings.co.uk/api/v1/opportunities`	Live opportunities, filtered and paged (below)
`https://getbearings.co.uk/api/v1/opportunities/<id>`	One opportunity, or 404 once it has closed
`https://getbearings.co.uk/api/v1/meta`	The vocabularies: areas, types, sectors and sector groups, who-can-apply types

Filters for /api/v1/opportunities

All optional; combine as many as you like. Lists are comma-separated.

Parameter	Meaning	Example
`area`	What a business based in this part of the North West can apply for: offers limited to another area are left out; contracts and national offers stay in. Areas: `gm` Greater Manchester, `lcr` Liverpool City Region, `cheshire` Cheshire & Warrington, `lancashire` Lancashire, `cumbria` Cumbria	`area=gm`
`kind`	Type of opportunity: grant, loan, investment, programme, advice, facilities, credits, training, tender, challenge, award, network	`kind=grant,loan`
`sector`	Sector ids or sector-group ids from `/api/v1/meta`. Add `strict=1` for only what is aimed at that sector	`sector=tech,screen`
`who`	Who is applying: startup, sme, scaleup, large, social, individual, research, public	`who=social`
`q`	Words that must all appear (title, summary, provider, conditions)	`q=net+zero`
`scope`	local (North West), national, global	`scope=local`
`closes_before`, `closes_after`	Deadline window (YYYY-MM-DD)	`closes_before=2026-12-24`
`new`	`1`: first seen in the last 7 days	`new=1`
`sort`	closes (soonest first, the default), newest, value	`sort=newest`
`limit`, `offset`	Paging: up to 200 a page (default 50)	`limit=100&offset=100`

Examples

Grants and loans a Greater Manchester charity can apply for, closing before Christmas:

https://getbearings.co.uk/api/v1/opportunities?area=gm&who=social&kind=grant,loan&closes_before=2026-12-24

Audio-visual contracts anywhere in England:

https://getbearings.co.uk/api/v1/opportunities?kind=tender&q=audio+visual

In JavaScript:

const r = await fetch("https://getbearings.co.uk/api/v1/opportunities?area=lcr&sector=music&new=1");
const { meta, data } = await r.json();
data.forEach(o => console.log(o.title, o.closes, o.url));

A response (one item):

{
  "meta": {
    "total": 42,
    "limit": 1,
    "offset": 0,
    "docs": "https://getbearings.co.uk/api"
  },
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "opp-f127d2aea28c",
      "title": "Lancashire Red Rose Responding Fund",
      "provider": "Community Foundation for Lancashire: open grants",
      "url": "https://lancsfoundation.org.uk/grants/lancashire-red-rose-responding-fund",
      "bearings_url": "https://getbearings.co.uk/o/opp-f127d2aea28c",
      "kind": "grant",
      "value": "award £5,000",
      "max_award": 5000.0,
      "closes": "2026-10-16",
      "rolling": false,
      "who": [
        "social"
      ],
      "scope": "local",
      "area": [
        "lancashire"
      ],
      "sectors": [
        "social",
        "community",
        "socent"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Fields

`title`, `summary`, `provider`	What it is and who runs it
`url`	The provider's own page: send people here
`bearings_url`	Its page on Bearings (who it's for, conditions)
`kind`, `type`	Type of opportunity, as on the site's filters
`value`, `max_award`	The award wording, and the largest single award in pounds where stated. Fund totals are never given as awards
`closes`, `rolling`	Deadline (YYYY-MM-DD), or open all year
`who`, `where`, `conditions`	Who can apply, any location rule, and key eligibility conditions (read from the provider's wording)
`scope`, `area`, `place`	local / national / global; the North West area(s) it is limited to (none = open across the North West); the borough its title names
`sectors`, `core_sectors`	Sectors it suits; the ones it is specifically for
`first_seen`, `new`, `closing_soon`	When Bearings first listed it; new this week; closing within 14 days

Other ways to get the data

The whole feed in one file: digest.json; a spreadsheet: opportunities.csv; what opens soon: coming-soon.json; and RSS feeds for any area, sector and type (/feeds/custom.xml takes the same filters as /api/v1/opportunities). Built something with it? Tell us.

Bearings API

Endpoints

Filters for /api/v1/opportunities

Examples

Fields

Other ways to get the data