month in review

UK public procurement in July 2023

7,992 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in July 2023 by 1,609 buying organisations, 2% up on June 2023. 9.5% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

7,992

buyers

1,609

named a winner

6,191

awarded directly

9.5%

median value

£110,924

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on June 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	June 2023	July 2023	change
West Northamptonshire Council	50	151	+101
Hull City Council	17	77	+60
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust	72	16	-56
Cumbria County Council	4	58	+54
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust	66	15	-51
The University of Birmingham	71	21	-50
Birmingham City Council	56	8	-48
London Borough of Haringey	70	116	+46
Hee	49	6	-43
Suffolk County Council	50	91	+41

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of July 2023

contract	buyer	won by	value
Workforce Solutions	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£20,000,000,000
Healthcare Soft Facilities Management Services	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£3,500,000,000
DAR: Decommissioning & Asbestos Removal	Magnox Limited	Celadon Alliance +4	£485,000,000
TC160 - North West Supported Accommodation (Young People) Flexible Purchasing System (FPS)	Bolton Council	123 supported accommodation +65	£410,000,000
Office Solutions	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£400,000,000
Furniture and Associated Services 2	Crown Commercial Service	successful suppliers list can be found in the attachments area	£400,000,000
RM6187 for the provision of management consultancy services.	KENT COUNTY COUNCIL	PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS LLP	£373,371,000
Overseas Prime Contracts Germany & Wider Europe - Transparency Notice	Ministry of Defence	Mitie (Defence) Limited	£247,807,524
Property Security and Electrical Works	BIP SOLUTIONS LIMITED	247 Alliance Ltd +22	£230,000,000
Provision of Office Cleaning Services for Department Buildings (1) (1)	NHS South West - Acutes	Webbs	£216,015,000

Contracts published in July 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 July 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.