Data · updated 16 September 2026
UK public sector contracts in numbers
In short
In the 12 months to 16 September 2026, public sector buyers published 84,867 contract awards on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder: 55,025 on Find a Tender and 29,842 on Contracts Finder. Contracts Finder states a value on 98% of its awards, and their median was £99k, with 50% under £100,000. Find a Tender states one on only 14%, and the median of those was £444k. Right now 1,837 contract opportunities are open to bid, and 71% of them carry none of the usual barriers to a small firm. 21,963 contracts are due to end in the next 12 months, 3,856 of them on 31 March 2027 alone.
Counted from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder notices by Bidwire, and recalculated every few hours. How each figure is worked out is at the foot of the page.
Open to bid now
| Open opportunities | 1,837 |
|---|---|
| From Find a Tender | 1,729 (94%) |
| From Contracts Finder, not also on Find a Tender | 108 (6%) |
| State a value | 1,412 (77%) |
| Median stated value | £975k |
| No size, turnover or national-coverage barrier | 1,306 (71%) |
| Frameworks | 468 (25%) |
Open opportunities by category
A notice can sit in more than one category, so these add up to more than the total.
Open opportunities by region
Where the work is delivered. "UK-wide" is work confirmed as national; "Not specified" is a notice that names no region at all.
| Region | Count |
|---|---|
| UK-wide | 264 |
| London | 260 |
| South East | 223 |
| East of England | 160 |
| Scotland | 157 |
| North West | 145 |
| South West | 140 |
| Wales | 140 |
| East Midlands | 128 |
| West Midlands | 119 |
| Northern Ireland | 99 |
| Yorkshire & Humber | 88 |
| North East | 74 |
| Not specified | 44 |
Awarded in the last 12 months
Contract award notices published between 16 September 2025 and 16 September 2026.
| Source | Awards | State a value | Median | Middle half | Under £30k | Under £100k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Find a Tender | 55,025 | 7,735 (14%) | £444k | £120k to £2.0m | 4% | 22% |
| Contracts Finder | 29,842 | 29,182 (98%) | £99k | £40k to £322k | 18% | 50% |
Medians, the middle half and the under-£30k and under-£100k shares are of the awards that state a value, not of all awards.
Most awarded categories
| Category | Count |
|---|---|
| IT, software & telecoms | 15,031 |
| Business & professional services | 12,061 |
| Construction & building works | 11,306 |
| Transport & vehicles | 9,756 |
| Surveying, architecture & engineering | 6,104 |
| Health & medical | 5,574 |
| Education & training | 4,500 |
| Repair & maintenance | 4,472 |
| Furniture, equipment & supplies | 3,416 |
| Research & development | 2,396 |
Coming up for renewal
21,963 active contracts are due to end in the next 12 months. End dates cluster on the end of the financial year: of every active contract with a future end date, 16% end on a 31 March. The busiest month ahead is March 2027, with 4,908, against a median of 1,249 a month.
| Month the contract ends | Contracts | Relative size |
|---|---|---|
| September 2026 (from today) | 1,891 | |
| October 2026 | 2,065 | |
| November 2026 | 1,556 | |
| December 2026 | 2,218 | |
| January 2027 | 1,167 | |
| February 2027 | 1,104 | |
| March 2027 | 4,908 | |
| April 2027 | 1,114 | |
| May 2027 | 1,036 | |
| June 2027 | 1,138 | |
| July 2027 | 2,223 | |
| August 2027 | 1,249 | |
| September 2027 (to 16 September 2027) | 294 |
Commonest end dates
| End date | Count | Of all future end dates |
|---|---|---|
| 31 March 2027 | 3,856 | 8% |
| 31 March 2029 | 1,510 | 3% |
| 31 March 2028 | 1,400 | 3% |
| 31 July 2027 | 1,332 | 3% |
| 30 September 2026 | 1,291 | 3% |
Buyers
3,524 public bodies have at least one recorded contract award, and 1,584 have five or more. Each has a buyer page showing what it buys and who it has awarded contracts to.
Most contracts awarded since September 2025
How these figures are worked out
- Sources. Notices published on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, the UK government's procurement services, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Bidwire's records start on 1 September 2025. Lower-value Scottish notices are on Public Contracts Scotland and are not included.
- Duplicates. Some jobs are published on both services. Where Bidwire matches the same opportunity or award on both, only the Find a Tender copy is counted.
- Awards are counted once per contracting process, using the latest notice for it.
- Open means the stated deadline has not passed, or, for a notice with no deadline, that it was published in the last 90 days.
- Values are as the notice states them. Some include VAT and some do not, and a framework's value is the most that might be spent through it, not what any one supplier will receive. Values of zero are treated as not stated.
- Renewals count active contracts only, by the end date in the award notice. Terminated contracts and contracts amended since award are left out, because their original end date can no longer be relied on. An end date is when the initial term ends; extension options can push the real date later.
- Barriers. A notice is counted as having no small-firm barrier when no lot is worth more than £5 million, it states no minimum turnover above £5 million, and it does not require coverage of the whole country. A notice that states no value counts as having no size barrier. See what rules a small firm out.
Quoting these figures is welcome; please link to this page. Corrections to [email protected].