month in review

UK public procurement in January 2023

7,556 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in January 2023 by 1,524 buying organisations, 21% up on December 2022. 8.5% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

7,556

buyers

1,524

named a winner

5,875

awarded directly

8.5%

median value

£100,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on December 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	December 2022	January 2023	change
UK Research and Innovation	110	219	+109
Defra Network eTendering Portal	104	171	+67
Cumbria County Council	88	143	+55
Bank of England	4	58	+54
Derbyshire County Council	20	64	+44
National Wealth Fund Limited	43	0	-43
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office	88	51	-37
Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit	45	80	+35
Homes England (the name adopted by the Homes and Communities Agency)	13	47	+34
FCDO Services	5	39	+34

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of January 2023

contract	buyer	won by	value
YPO 001141 Managing Consultancy and Professional Services	YPO	Reed Specialist Recruitment Ltd	£6,000,000,000
National Fuels 3	The Minister for the Cabinet Office acting through Crown Commercial Service	Refer to the attachments area	£2,000,000,000
Procurement of Criminal Legal Aid Services from 1 October 2022	The Legal Aid Agency	all bidders can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/crime-contract-2022-tender	£1,800,000,000
Housing High Rise Improvement Works - Lovell Park & Moor Grange Court	Leeds City Council	Equans Regeneration Ltd	£1,502,447,527
HMP Dovegate	Ministry of Justice	Serco Group Plc	£1,011,462,320
HMP Peterborough	Ministry of Justice	Sodexo Limited	£997,145,161
HMP Bronzefield	Ministry of Justice	Sodexo Limited	£775,335,731
HMP Ashfield	Ministry of Justice	Serco Group Plc	£332,634,325
HMP Northumberland	Ministry of Justice	Sodexo Limited	£291,910,529
HMP Oakwood	Ministry of Justice	G4S Care and Justice Services (UK) Limited	£267,662,340

Contracts published in January 2023 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 January 2023 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.