month in review

UK public procurement in May 2023

7,513 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in May 2023 by 1,522 buying organisations, 7% down on April 2023. 9.3% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

7,513

buyers

1,522

named a winner

5,722

awarded directly

9.3%

median value

£110,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on April 2023

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 2023	May 2023	change
Hee	272	31	-241
Bristol City Council	241	42	-199
Department of Health and Social Care	172	11	-161
UK Health Security Agency	166	25	-141
Cumbria County Council	83	2	-81
Newcastle University	112	39	-73
University of the West of England	36	83	+47
UK Research and Innovation	111	157	+46
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)	49	6	-43
Durham County Council	10	51	+41

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of May 2023

contract	buyer	won by	value
Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) New Homes Framework NH3	LHC Procurement Group Limited for the Scottish Procurement Alliance (SPA)	Advance Construction (Scotland) Ltd +9	£7,500,000,000
PROVISION OF A FLOATING SUPPORT SERVICE	London Borough of Hounslow	Thames Reach	£5,240,000,000
Building and Fire Safety Framework	The Hyde Group	Please refer to original CAN +1	£1,353,000,000
Support at Home Tender	Caerphilly County Borough Council	Cynefin Care Ltd +2	£1,155,672,830
YPO 001181 - Water, Wastewater and Ancillary Services	Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation	ANGLIAN WATER BUSINESS (NATIONAL) LIMITED	£1,000,000,000
Notice of Publication for Transparency: Overseas Prime Contract Cyprus Hard Facilities Management	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	Mitie (Defence) Limited	£866,326,758
Flexible Framework for Self Directed Support including Care at Home Services Entry Point 3	North Lanarkshire Council	Adigo Limited +3	£820,000,000
Support at Home Tender	Caerphilly County Borough Council	Cynefin Care Ltd	£782,356,680
Insurance and related services 4	Crown Commercial Service	N/A	£600,000,000
CLOUD SOLUTIONS 2	N H S Shared Business Services	Accenture (UK) Limited +33	£500,000,000

Contracts published in May 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 May 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.