month in review

UK public procurement in May 2026

10,240 UK public sector tenders and contract awards were published in May 2026 by 1,699 buying organisations, 19% up on April 2026. 20.1% of those with a recorded route to market were awarded directly, without competition.

notices

10,240

buyers

1,699

named a winner

7,053

awarded directly

20.1%

median value

£433,448

most active buyers

who won most

biggest changes on April 2026

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 2026	May 2026	change
Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime	13	140	+127
Buckinghamshire Council - e-Tendering System	192	77	-115
Suffolk County Council	40	118	+78
Ministry of Justice	30	89	+59
Halton Borough Council	4	52	+48
North Yorkshire Council	112	64	-48
London Borough of Waltham Forest	1	47	+46
NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board	8	51	+43
Department for Education	45	86	+41
London Borough of Islington	54	16	-38

what was bought

the biggest awarded contracts of May 2026

contract	buyer	won by	value
Small Modular Reactor Technology Partner	Great British Energy - Nuclear	Rolls-Royce SMR Limited	£20,000,000,000
Offsite Construction Solutions - Lots 1, 2, 3 & 4 extension	Government Commercial Agency	Not Applicable	£9,515,000,000
TfL Revenue Collection Services - Project Proteus 24412	Transport Trading Limited	Indra Sistemas S.A.	£1,500,000,000
Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) in Schools - Design and Engagement	East Sussex County Council	0ur rainwater Limited	£1,261,060,000
Trafford Council Heat Network Development Partner	Trafford Council	VITAL ENERGI UTILITIES LIMITED	£1,118,003,000
Operational Procurement Support Service	RED KITE LEARNING TRUST	PAGABO LIMITED	£1,050,000,000
Irregular Migration Management Services (IMMS) Lot 1	Home Office	Definitive PSA +3	£521,300,000
Bradford and District Residential and Nursing Care Homes Provider List	CITY OF BRADFORD METROPOLITAN DISTRICT COUNCIL	ABBEYDALE (ILKLEY) LIMITED +254	£300,000,000
Washwood Heath Depot and Network Integrated Control Centre	High Speed Two (HS2) Ltd	Joint Venture, Taylor Woodrow infrastructure Limited and Aureos Rail Limited	£275,000,000
Negotiated procedure without prior publication (above threshold)	Cabinet Office	KPMG LLP	£223,200,000

Contracts published in May 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 May 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.