Free market report
The UK public procurement market, in numbers.
How much the public sector is buying, which sectors are busiest, how the work is being bought, and who's winning it — compiled from official public-sector procurement data. Free to read, no sign-up.
Compiled 12 Nov 2026 · rolling 12-month window · updated continuously
Contracts awarded
201,402
in the last 12 months
Buyers active
3,508
Suppliers winning work
47,082
How busy the market is
Notices published each month across the UK public sector
Dec 25
Jan 26
Feb 26
Mar 26
Apr 26
May 26
Jun 26
Jul 26
Aug 26
Sep 26
Oct 26
Nov 26
What the public sector buys most
Busiest sectors by number of contracts awarded
-
Construction works 22,580
-
Business & management services 22,031
-
Health & social work 20,795
-
IT services 20,676
-
Transport services 12,544
Who wins the most work
Suppliers by number of contracts won
-
Computacenter 1,531
-
Softcat Plc 939
-
Venesky Brown Ltd 605
-
Lorien Resourcing Ltd 456
-
Academia Ltd 422
Who's buying most
Buyers by number of contracts awarded
-
Government Commercial Agency 9,147
-
Scottish Borders Council 6,001
-
Scotland Excel 3,394
-
Aberdeenshire Council 3,272
-
Fife Council 2,865
Money actually paid out
Cash that left the building, not headline contract values — cumulative across every published return we hold, so this section is not limited to the 12-month window above
Paid to suppliers
£231.24bn
Goods and services
Grants & aid
£608.32bn
Funding, not purchasing
Payments
1,251,402
Payees
32,968
Covers 31 central-government departments that publish >£25k transparency returns, covering payments from 26 Jun 2024 to 4 Nov 2026 — a sample of public spending, not the whole of it. Grants and aid are separated out because a department's return records all its spending, including money passed to schools, councils and public bodies rather than bought from a supplier.
This is the market. Now find your part of it.
These are whole-market totals. What matters to you is the handful of opportunities in your sector, in your region, at your contract size — and knowing about them early enough to bid well. That's what a DataScene membership does: filter this market down to your business, score each opportunity against your company profile with AI, and get alerted the moment a match is published.
How these figures are calculated
League tables rank by number of contracts, never by value: on a framework the published figure is a ceiling repeated against every appointed supplier, so summing it would count the same money many times. The money figures are cash actually paid, from departments' published spending returns, with grants separated from payments for goods and services. UK only, in sterling.
A note on comparisons: published figures for UK public procurement range from £249bn a year (excluding capital spending) to £385bn, depending on what is counted. Those measure cash spent in a year. Contract award values measure something different — the whole value of contracts signed, most of which is paid out over several years — so the two should not be read as the same number.
Compiled by DataScene from official UK public-sector procurement publications, covering the rolling 12-month window to 12 Nov 2026. Free to quote with attribution.