month in review

UK public procurement in September 2021

6,987 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in September 2021 by 1,340 buying organisations, 25% up on August 2021. 7% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

6,987

buyers

1,340

named a winner

5,255

awarded directly

median value

£110,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on August 2021

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	August 2021	September 2021	change
Department for Education	54	265	+211
Surrey County Council	332	131	-201
Department of Health and Social Care	82	184	+102
Defra Network eTendering Portal	151	250	+99
Suffolk County Council	180	89	-91
Royal Borough of Greenwich - managed by GS Plus Ltd	107	21	-86
UK Research and Innovation	35	104	+69
Cardiff City Council	75	14	-61
UK Shared Business Services Limited	47	102	+55
Bristol City Council	27	77	+50

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of September 2021

contract	buyer	won by	value
Infrastructure Delivery Partnership (IDP)	Sellafield Ltd	Costain Limited +3	£3,000,000,000
Maintenance, Repair and Calibration of Medical Equipment	NHS Supply Chain	ADVANCED STERILIZATION PRODUCTS (UK) LIMITED +133	£1,600,000,000
COVID Infection Survey (CIS)Services Related to COVID-19 - Invitation to Tender for CIS Prime Provider - AWARD	Office for National Statistics	IQVIA LTD	£1,100,000,000
Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA)	Cabinet Office	ORDNANCE SURVEY	£962,939,000
Engines Future Support	Ministry of Defence	Safran Helicopters UK Ltd	£832,729,000
2664_22 Property, Building and Infrastructure Advice and Management Services	ESPO	AA Projects Ltd +29	£750,000,000
New Velindre Cancer Centre MIM Project	Velindre University NHS Trust	Acorn Velindre Limited	£562,000,000
953_22 Modular Buildings	ESPO	Actaccom Limited +22	£500,000,000
The Provision of Facilities Management Services	Scottish Government	Mitie	£400,000,000
Sustainable Furniture Solutions	NEUPC Ltd	Audience Systems Limited +28	£282,000,000

Contracts published in September 2021 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 September 2021 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.