month in review

UK public procurement in December 2024

6,464 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in December 2024 by 1,476 buying organisations, 14% down on November 2024. 12.2% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

6,464

buyers

1,476

named a winner

5,005

awarded directly

12.2%

median value

£120,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on November 2024

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	November 2024	December 2024	change
The University of Birmingham	102	2	-100
University of the West of England	10	64	+54
The Crown Estate	26	71	+45
UK Shared Business Services Limited	96	136	+40
Durham County Council	48	13	-35
Environment Agency	98	66	-32
Surrey County Council	96	64	-32
NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership - Procurement Services	52	21	-31
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council	0	30	+30
NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit	38	9	-29

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of December 2024

contract	buyer	won by	value
Electric Vehicle Charging Hubs Joint Venture	Places for London Limited	Fastned UK Limited	£3,000,000,000
ESMCP - Mobile Services Agreement for the Emergency Services Network	Home Office	British Telecommunications Plc +1	£1,850,000,000
707920450 - PHOENIX 3 MOD WHITE FLEET MANAGEMENT SERVICES	Ministry of Defence	Babcock Land Defence Limited	£1,773,000,000
CP2463-23 Devon & Torbay Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure	Devon County Council	Char.gy Limited +2	£780,000,000
Pudding Mill Lane Joint Venture Development Partner	London Legacy Development Corporation	Countryside Properties (UK) Limited	£600,000,000
Prison Operator Services - HMP Dovegate	Ministry of Justice	Serco Ltd	£479,000,000
AWARD OF PROVISION OF INTERIM STRATEGIC SEALIFT	MINISTRY OF DEFENCE	FORELAND SHIPPING LIMITED	£476,000,000
Planned Investment and Major Works	THE GUINNESS PARTNERSHIP LIMITED	Axis Europe Limited +4	£320,000,000
Application Maintenance and Support (AMS) Services	DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS (Defra Network eTendering Portal)	Accenture (UK) Limited	£290,000,000
PSNI - Security and Operational Support Services	Police Service of Northern Ireland PSNI	"Supplier name withheld for Security Reasons"	£210,000,000

Contracts published in December 2024 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 December 2024 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.