month in review

UK public procurement in December 2021

6,447 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in December 2021 by 1,377 buying organisations, 7% down on November 2021. 7.1% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

6,447

buyers

1,377

named a winner

4,759

awarded directly

7.1%

median value

£104,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on November 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	November 2021	December 2021	change
Defra Network eTendering Portal	288	137	-151
Maritime and Coastguard Agency	127	27	-100
Surrey County Council	23	114	+91
London Borough of Haringey	36	108	+72
Ministry of Justice	108	57	-51
Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit	29	76	+47
Ministry of Defence	210	166	-44
UK Research and Innovation	107	148	+41
London Borough of Waltham Forest	17	56	+39
Cumbria County Council	31	69	+38

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of December 2021

contract	buyer	won by	value
Southern Integrated Delivery (SID) – Signalling and Track	Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd	Atkins Limited +1	£9,600,000,000
3S_22 Strategic HR Services	ESPO	Accountants In Demand +95	£1,000,000,000
Y20031 - Supply of Multi-Functional Devices and Digital Solutions	Kent County Council (T/a KCS Procurement Services)	Apogee Corporation Ltd +7	£500,000,000
Cornwall Council and NHS Kernow care home contract	NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group	AbleCare (Helston) Limited +75	£355,000,000
ABLE MARINE ENERGY PARK - MAIN QUAY WORKS	Able Humber Ports Limited	Eiffage Genie Civil Marine (consortium lead) +1	£285,000,000
M5 Junction 10 Improvements Scheme	Gloucestershire County Council	Galliford Try Construction Limited	£200,000,000
2700_22 Estates Management Professional Services	ESPO	AA Projects Ltd +32	£160,000,000
SDF Lot 3.1 South_ H W Martin (Traffic Management) Ltd A	Highways England	H W Martin (Traffic Management) Ltd	£140,481,359
NHS National Pharmaceuticals Transition 2022_1	NHS England	Accord-UK Ltd +41	£140,000,000
SDF Lot 3.1 C_ Chevron Traffic Management Limited A	Highways England	Chevron Traffic Management Limited	£116,170,000

Contracts published in December 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 December 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.