analysis

how long you wait after bidding

Half of UK public sector contracts are awarded within 19 days of the closing date, but one in ten takes more than 110. Measured across 330,518 contracts where the buyer published both a deadline and an award date — a wait no official source reports.

median wait

19 days

slowest tenth

over 110 days

contracts measured

330,518

what is being measured

The gap between the date bids closed and the date the buyer records as the award. It is the wait a bidder actually experiences after submitting, which is the thing nobody publishes — not a measure of how efficient a buyer is, and not a service standard anyone has committed to.

79,910 contracts (19.4% of those carrying both dates) record an award before their own closing date and are excluded. That is not a buyer awarding early: an award notice republishes the tender's original deadline, so an extended deadline, a re-published lot or a call-off against an older parent all produce one. They cannot say how long anything took.

how long it takes

wait	contracts
within a week	108,409
1 to 4 weeks	93,462
1 to 3 months	84,801
3 to 6 months	29,333
6 to 12 months	11,022
over a year	3,491

buyers that take longest

The 20 slowest by median, of the organisations with at least 100 measurable contracts. A long median is not necessarily poor administration — complex or high-value work takes longer to evaluate, and a body buying nothing but that will sit high here.

buyer	median wait	contracts
Capita Business Services	151 days	106
Department for International Development	141 days	735
NHS Supply Chain	127 days	196
The Litmus Partnership Ltd	114 days	408
Ofgem	110 days	454
Skills Funding Agency	110 days	134
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)	104 days	150
London Borough of Hillingdon	94 days	545
Hee	89 days	719
Health Education England	74 days	1,327
London Borough of Bromley	65 days	162
Tower Hamlets	63 days	329
Manchester City Council	62 days	495
the Coal Authority	62 days	154
London Borough of Lewisham	62 days	124
Parliament UK	60 days	172
North of England Commissioning Support	60 days	137
Greater Manchester Combined Authority - Greater Manchester Police	60 days	121
Stoke-on-Trent City Council	59 days	335
Ashford Borough Council	59 days	199

by category

Every category with at least 1,000 measurable contracts, slowest first.

category	median wait	contracts
catering, hotels and retail	56 days	2,218
public administration and defence	45 days	3,828
food and drink	41 days	1,545
waste, cleaning and environment	38 days	7,926
grounds maintenance and horticulture	34 days	2,130
health and social care	32 days	17,439
sport, music and recreation goods	30 days	1,327
fuel and energy	28 days	2,150
education and training	27 days	16,288
post and telecoms	27 days	1,456
construction work	26 days	44,270
community and personal services	25 days	3,512
agriculture and forestry	24 days	1,085
industrial machinery	24 days	3,562
construction materials	24 days	6,771
furniture and furnishings	23 days	3,814
repair and maintenance	23 days	10,316
finance and insurance	23 days	5,557
electrical equipment	23 days	3,675
culture, sport and recreation	23 days	2,012
printing and publishing	23 days	1,523
freight, logistics and travel	22 days	1,241
security and defence equipment	20 days	2,612
research and development	20 days	14,387
architecture and engineering	19 days	23,309
property services	18 days	2,436
communications equipment	16 days	4,823
vehicles and transport equipment	14 days	10,529
medical and pharmaceutical	14 days	6,100
business and professional services	14 days	41,420
IT services	14 days	26,377
office and computer equipment	13 days	6,613
laboratory and precision equipment	13 days	6,097
software and information systems	12 days	22,737
transport services	4 days	14,111

how this was counted

From the tender closing date and the award date as published on notices across Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales. Counts are of contracting processes, not published notices: a tender and its award notice are one contract and are counted once, and where a contract has several awards the earliest award date is used.

411,726 contracts carry both dates. 79,910 record an award before their own closing date and are excluded, as are any gap beyond 730 days, leaving 330,518 measured here.

Medians throughout, never means: 3,491 contracts took more than a year, and an average would let them speak for the typical case. The distribution above is shown so the median is read with its spread rather than on its own.

The award date is the date the buyer records, which is not always the date a decision was taken — some publish the date the notice was filed. It is the only date the feeds carry, and it is what a bidder experiences.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.