month in review

UK public procurement in January 2026

8,716 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in January 2026 by 1,539 buying organisations, 30% up on December 2025. 26% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

8,716

buyers

1,539

named a winner

7,640

awarded directly

26%

median value

£165,000

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on December 2025

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 2025	January 2026	change
Portsmouth City Council	130	9	-121
UK Research and Innovation	196	283	+87
Birmingham City Council	13	79	+66
NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board	3	64	+61
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust	24	84	+60
Norwich City Council	2	50	+48
Ministry of Defence	71	118	+47
Suffolk County Council	39	84	+45
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council	72	28	-44
National Highways	40	83	+43

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of January 2026

contract	buyer	won by	value
Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy Programme - Cross-Regional Supplier Call-Off 6	Department for Science, Innovation and Technology	British Telecommunications plc	£800,000,000
Pan-TfL Cleaning and Associated Services	Transport for London	Mitie Environmental and Cleaning Services Ltd	£775,000,000
CPC Drive - Vehicle Leasing and Salary Sacrifice Scheme	Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, trading as North of England NHS Commercial Procurement Collaborative ("NOE CPC")	Tuskerdirect Limited	£650,000,001
London Cycle Hire Scheme	Transport for London	Serco Limited	£500,000,000
704399451-46 - MSS/142 MRO055_CAN	Ministry of Defence	BAE Systems Surface Ships Limited +2	£317,000,000
704399451-96 - MSS/142 MRO107_CAN	Ministry of Defence	M E L Aviation Limited +1	£317,000,000
704399451-94 - MSS/142 MRO102_CAN	Ministry of Defence	BAE Systems Surface Ships Limited +1	£317,000,000
704399451-38 - MSS/142 MRO046_CAN	Ministry of Defence	Scott Aerospace	£317,000,000
704399451-93 - MSS/142 MRO089_CAN	Ministry of Defence	BAE Systems Surface Ships Limited +1	£317,000,000
704399451-56 - MSS/142 MRO058_CAN	Ministry of Defence	BAE Systems Surface Ships Limited	£317,000,000

Contracts published in January 2026 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 2026 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.