month in review

UK public procurement in May 2022

7,542 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in May 2022 by 1,487 buying organisations, 14% up on April 2022. 7.2% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

7,542

buyers

1,487

named a winner

5,808

awarded directly

7.2%

median value

£120,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on April 2022

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	April 2022	May 2022	change
Suffolk County Council	59	535	+476
Milton Keynes City Council	39	304	+265
Surrey County Council	24	205	+181
Met Office	111	6	-105
Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit	15	118	+103
Cumbria County Council	58	158	+100
London Borough of Haringey	30	106	+76
University of the West of England	70	0	-70
UK Research and Innovation	127	68	-59
National Highways	85	28	-57

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of May 2022

contract	buyer	won by	value
Payment Solutions 2	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£15,000,000,000
Security - Physical, Technical and Support Services	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£3,000,000,000
Scottish Trunk Road Network Management Contract - North West Unit	Transport Scotland	BEAR Scotland Limited	£900,000,000
Fire & Intruder Alarms & Fire Protection Equipment	EFFICIENCY EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED	ABCA Systems Ltd +9	£600,000,000
Scottish Trunk Road Network Management Contract - North East Unit	Transport Scotland	Amey OW Limited	£530,000,000
301_22 The Supply of Liquid Fuels	Espo	B.W.O.C. LIMITED +14	£500,000,000
Supply of Temporary and Semi-Permanent Buildings - Y21018	Kent County Council (t/a KCS)	Actaccom Ltd +14	£400,000,000
704_22 Outsourced Catering Services	ESPO	abm Catering Limited +47	£400,000,000
Overseas Prime Contract Gibraltar - Transparency Notice	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	Mitie (Defence) Limited	£203,967,933
Supply of Total Facilities Management - Y22028	Kent County Council (t/a KCS Procurement Services)	ABM UK +5	£200,000,000

Contracts published in May 2022 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 May 2022 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.