month in review
UK public procurement in April 2020
2,973 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in April 2020 by 736 buying organisations, 17% down on March 2020. 14.4% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.
most active buyers
- FCDO Services119
- University of the West of England92
- UK Shared Business Services Limited89
- Newcastle University79
- Department for Transport60
- Leeds City Council47
- Darlington Borough Council44
- Ministry of Defence39
- London Borough of Enfield35
- Procurement Assist Limited c/o Integrated Facilities Management Bolton Ltd (iFM Bolton)33
who won most
- Dell Corporation Limited32
- Aecom26
- Jaguar Land Rover Limited20
- Insight Direct (UK) Ltd19
- Harvey Nash17
- Softcat PLC17
- Specialist Computer Centres PLC15
- Software Box Limited14
- Hays Specialist Recruitment Ltd12
- Morson International12
biggest changes on March 2020
Change in the number of notices published, against the month before. Measured as an absolute change and shown only where it is at least ten notices — a buyer going from one notice to four is a 300% rise and means nothing.
| buyer | March 2020 | April 2020 | change |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of the West of England | 0 | 92 | +92 |
| FCDO Services | 55 | 119 | +64 |
| Newcastle University | 30 | 79 | +49 |
| Leeds City Council | 91 | 47 | -44 |
| London Borough of Enfield | 78 | 35 | -43 |
| Quadrant Construction Services Limited | 48 | 6 | -42 |
| Procurement Assist Limited c/o Integrated Facilities Management Bolton Ltd (iFM Bolton) | 0 | 33 | +33 |
| University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust | 3 | 33 | +30 |
| University of Sheffield | 38 | 10 | -28 |
| Metropolitan Police Service | 29 | 1 | -28 |
what was bought
- construction work 364
- business and professional services 349
- IT services 253
- architecture and engineering 226
- software and information systems 224
- health and social care 147
- vehicles and transport equipment 121
- research and development 103
- repair and maintenance 101
- education and training 92
the biggest awarded contracts of April 2020
Contracts published in April 2020 that name a winning supplier, ranked by the value the buyer published, excluding those flagged as a maximum rather than a price. Figures are as published; gvtcx does not adjust them. A large contract is often a multi-year framework, so the value is what may be spent over its whole life — and where several suppliers share one framework, each is shown against the framework's full value rather than its own share.
how this was counted
Notices published in April 2020 across Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Counts are of contracting processes, not published notices: a tender and its award notice are one contract and are counted once.
There is no total value on this page, deliberately. Published values repeat a framework's entire ceiling against every supplier on it, so a month containing one large framework would read as a spending spike that never happened. The median excludes anything flagged as a ceiling, and the reasoning is set out in full here. Where a total IS defensible — contracts awarded to a single supplier, with no framework — it is on the direct awards page.
A month stays open to revision: publishers backdate, so figures for the current month and the one before it may still move.