month in review

UK public procurement in September 2023

7,881 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in September 2023 by 1,484 buying organisations, 5% down on August 2023. 9.4% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

7,881

buyers

1,484

named a winner

6,267

awarded directly

9.4%

median value

£99,365

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on August 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	August 2023	September 2023	change
Suffolk County Council	332	138	-194
Health Education England	98	191	+93
Newcastle University	1	79	+78
Leicester City Council	136	59	-77
Ministry of Defence	207	136	-71
London Borough of Lewisham	10	60	+50
UK Research and Innovation	167	217	+50
NHS England	75	120	+45
Ipswich Borough Council	11	54	+43
UK Shared Business Services Limited	97	137	+40

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of September 2023

contract	buyer	won by	value
Supply of Electricity Framework Agreement	Scottish Government	EDF Energy Customers Limited	£3,500,000,000
COV - Strategic Energy Partner	Coventry City Council	E.ON UK plc	£2,000,000,000
Payment Acceptance 2	Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£1,200,000,000
Visa and Citizenship Application Services (VCAS) - Lot 4	Secretary of State for the Home Department	VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd	£1,200,000,000
Midlands Highways Alliance Plus (MHA+): Professional Services Partnership 4 (PSP4)	Leicestershire County Council (on behalf of Midlands Highways Alliance Plus) (MHA+)	Aecom Ltd +5	£950,000,000
Temporary Agency Nurses & Operating Department Practitioners	NHS National Services Scotland	Allied and Clinical Recruitments Limited +61	£750,000,000
Agreement for the reservation of manufacturing capacity and production and supply of influenza pandemic specific vaccine during a pandemic	Secretary of State for Health and Social Care acting as part of the Crown through UK Health Security Agency	SEQIRUS UK LIMITED	£676,000,000
Estate Management Services 2	The Minister for the Cabinet Office acting through Crown Commercial Service	AECOM Limited +94	£650,000,000
Enterprise Fleet Replacement Project	Translink	Stadler Rail Schweiz AG	£565,423,800
Tyres, Glass & Telematics	The Minister for the Cabinet Office acting through Crown Commercial Service	named in the notice	£355,650,000

Contracts published in September 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 September 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.