UK Procurement Market Report · 21 September 2026 to 27 September 2026
UK public procurement: the week to 27 September 2026
Find a Tender notices from 21 Sep to 27 Sep: 2,264 releases, 1,428 awards, 49.2% below threshold and 57.4% SME supplier places, with coverage stated.
Counted from 2,264 notices published on Find a Tender between 21 September 2026 and 27 September 2026. Compiled 28 September 2026 by the eSourcing Data team.
2,264
Notices published
21 September 2026 to 27 September 2026, every notice type
1,428
Award notices
63.1% of the 2,264 classified notices
356
Tender notices
15.7% of the 2,264 classified notices
49.2%
Below threshold
935 of the 1,902 notices that named a procedure
25.2%
Carried a contract value
only 571 of 2,264 notices published a value
57.4%
SME share of flagged suppliers
1,495 of 2,603 suppliers that stated a size
The week in short
- 2,264 procurement notices were published on Find a Tender in the seven days to 27 September 2026.
- That breaks down as 1,428 award notices, 356 tender notices, 202 planning notices, 245 updates and 33 cancellations.
- Below threshold notices accounted for 49.2% of the 1,902 notices that stated a procurement procedure.
- 57.4% of the 2,603 supplier parties with a stated business size on award notices were logged as SMEs.
- Construction work was the most common subject area, on 20.4% of the 794 notices carrying a CPV code.
- A value in pounds was published on 25.2% of notices, with a median of £720,000 across those 571 records.
What this week's data can and cannot tell you
UK notices are not uniformly complete, so before any finding it is worth knowing how much of the data carries each field. Every percentage in this report is calculated from the notices that actually published the field in question, never from the full set. The bars below are those denominators.
Share of the 2,264 notices that published an amount. Every value figure below is calculated from those notices only.
Share of notices that stated whether the requirement is goods, services or works.
Share of notices that named the procurement procedure used. Both the procedure split and the below threshold share are calculated from those 1,902 notices.
Share of the supplier records on award notices that stated a business size. The SME figure is calculated from those records only.
This report counts notices published on Find a Tender in the period shown. It is a measure of published procurement activity, not a measure of all UK public spending. Notices can be updated or withdrawn after publication, and organisations that publish elsewhere are not included.
How buyers ran the process
Procurement procedure, as stated on the notice. This covers the 1,902 notices that named one, 84% of the 2,264 published in this period. The rest are not counted here rather than assumed.
Procedures used
Counts are notices. Base: the 1,902 notices that stated a procedure. Source: Find a Tender.
Below threshold activity
935 notices in this period were below threshold. That is 49.2% of the 1,902 notices that named a procedure, not of all 2,264 notices published, because a notice that does not name a procedure cannot be classified either way. This is where most smaller suppliers find work, and the split below shows how open that competition was.
Below threshold notices by route
- Without competition36639.1%
- Open competition25627.4%
- Limited competition18319.6%
- Unknown758%
- Award under framework545.8%
- By reference to dynamic market10.1%
Counts are notices. Base: the 935 below threshold notices in this period. Source: Find a Tender.
What kind of notices these were
Every release is tagged with its notice type. Updates and cancellations are counted separately so they cannot inflate the count of live opportunities.
Notice types published
- Award notices1,42863.1%
- Tender notices35615.7%
- Updates24510.8%
- Planning notices2028.9%
- Cancellations331.5%
Counts are notices. Base: all 2,264 classified notices in this period. Source: Find a Tender.
The busiest sectors
Grouped by the CPV code published on the notice. Shares are of the notices that carried a CPV classification, not of all notices. CPV is a description of what is being bought, not a measure of its value.
Top sectors by notice count
Counts are notices. Base: the notices carrying a CPV classification. Source: Find a Tender.
Where the work is
Taken from the delivery region published on the notice. A notice can name more than one region and many name none, so shares are of the notices that stated a region.
Notices by delivery region
Counts are notices. Base: the notices stating a delivery region. Source: Find a Tender.
Who published the most
Ranked by number of notices published in the period, not by value. A buyer that splits a programme across many lots will appear high here without necessarily spending more than a buyer with one large notice.
Most active buyers by notice count
Counts are notices. Base: the notices naming a buyer, which is most but not all of them. Source: Find a Tender.
Published contract values
571
notices published a value
25.2% of notices in this period
£720,000
median published value
the midpoint of those notices
£243.07bn
sum of published values
£243,067,316,674
The sum above is the total of the values that were actually published. It is not the amount the UK public sector spent or committed in this period, and we do not scale it up to estimate one. In this period 74.8% of notices carried no value at all, published values can be estimates or maximums rather than contract prices, and a framework ceiling can dwarf what is ever called off it.
Values are published on a minority of notices. These figures cover the 571 of 2,264 releases (25.2%) that carried a value in pounds sterling. The median is the reliable measure here: the sum is heavily concentrated, with the five largest notices accounting for 89.5% of it and the single largest at £120,000,000,000. Large notices often state the whole life value of a framework or dynamic market rather than spending in this period, so the total is not a measure of UK public spending and should not be read as one.
Small business share
57.4%
of flagged suppliers were SMEs
1,495
suppliers flagged as SMEs
1,108
suppliers flagged as large
This is the share of the supplier records that stated a business size, 2,603 of them in this period, and 99.7% of the supplier records published carried that flag. It counts supplier places on awards, not contract value, so it is not the share of spending won by small businesses and it is not a national SME spend figure.
Counted from supplier parties named on award notices. 2,603 of 2,611 supplier parties carried a stated business size, so the percentage is calculated from those 2,603 records only and not from every award.
A heavy week of publishing
Between 21 September 2026 and 27 September 2026, 2,264 releases appeared on Find a Tender. Of those, 1,428 were award notices, 356 were tender notices, 202 were planning notices, 245 were updates to existing notices and 33 were cancellations. Each release is counted once, under the most specific type it carries, so an award that also carries a contract tag is counted as a single award.
These are published notices, not contracts and not spending. A notice appears when a buyer chooses to publish, so the figures describe publishing behaviour on Find a Tender in the period, which is a good proxy for market activity but not the whole of UK public procurement.
Volume was up 1.3% on the same length of window covering 14 September 2026 to 20 September 2026, when 2,236 releases were published. That is a like for like comparison of two equal windows on the same source, nothing more.
How buyers are choosing procedures
1,902 releases, 84% of the total, stated a procurement procedure. Among those, open procedure was the most used at 21.6%, ahead of below threshold without competition at 19.2%. Percentages in this section are calculated from those 1,902 records only.
The Procurement Act 2023 replaced the old route map with a smaller set of choices: open procedure, competitive flexible procedure and direct award. In this period the open procedure sat at 21.6%, the competitive flexible procedure at 8.7% and direct award at 8.1%. The flexible procedure is in steady use, though the open procedure still does most of the work.
Direct award at 8.1% is a small part of the picture in this period, which is what a competitive market should look like on the published record.
The below threshold picture
Below threshold work made up a large minority of the period. 935 of the 1,902 notices that stated a procedure were below threshold, 49.2% of them.
Within the below threshold group the split was without competition on 366 notices (39.1%), open competition on 256 notices (27.4%), limited competition on 183 notices (19.6%), unknown on 75 notices (8%), award under framework on 54 notices (5.8%), by reference to dynamic market on 1 notices (0.1%). Those percentages are shares of the 935 below threshold notices, not of the whole period.
More than half of below threshold notices, 58.7%, went out through limited or no competition. For suppliers that is the part of the market you cannot win by waiting for a tender to appear, because the buyer has already chosen who to ask.
SME participation
SMEs took 57.4% of the supplier places on award notices where a business size was stated, close to an even split with large suppliers.
Counted from supplier parties named on award notices. 2,603 of 2,611 supplier parties carried a stated business size, so the percentage is calculated from those 2,603 records only and not from every award. Business size is a self declared field, and it was completed on 99.7% of the supplier parties named on award notices in this period, so treat the share as the best available signal rather than a complete count of the market.
For a smaller supplier the practical read is that the published record does not support the idea that only large firms win. The constraint is usually visibility and bid capacity, not eligibility.
Sectors, regions and the busiest buyers
794 releases carried at least one CPV code, 35.1% of the week. Grouped to CPV division, the busiest subject areas were Construction work (20.4%), Health and social work services (17.8%), Business services: law, marketing, consulting and recruitment (12.1%), Architecture, engineering and inspection services (10.3%), IT services: consulting, software development and internet (10.1%). A notice can carry more than one division, so it is counted once in each division it touches and the shares do not add to 100%.
645 releases carried a delivery region, 28.5% of the week. On that base the busiest regions were North West (17.4%), London (16.7%), West Midlands (16.6%), South East (14.6%), Yorkshire and the Humber (14.1%). Region is taken from the delivery address on the notice, so national frameworks and centrally run contracts are under represented here.
The most active publishers by notice count were University of the West of England (41), Surrey County Council (33), NHS England (32), UK Research and Innovation (32), Bristol City Council (16). Notice count is a measure of publishing activity, not of contract size, and a single procurement can produce several notices as it moves from planning to tender to award.
What it means for buyers and suppliers
For buyers, the useful question is whether your own publishing looks like the market around you. If most of your peers are running below threshold competitions and you are not, that is worth understanding, because procedure choice sets how many suppliers can realistically respond. Notices that carry a value and a category are also easier for suppliers to act on: across the market in this period a value in pounds appeared on 25.2% of notices and a main category on 43%.
For suppliers, the practical steps are narrow and repeatable. Track the divisions that match what you actually sell, starting with construction work, watch the buyers publishing most often in your region, and read award notices as market intelligence rather than as bad news. An award notice tells you who won, often how much, and when the contract is likely to come round again.
Everything above is drawn from notices published on Find a Tender between 21 September 2026 and 27 September 2026. It is a picture of what buyers chose to publish in that window. It is not a measure of all UK public spending, and no figure here has been extrapolated beyond the records that carry the field.
Method, source and licence
- Source: Find a Tender, the UK central notice service, read through its open OCDS API. Period covered: 21 September 2026 to 27 September 2026. Notices counted: 2,264. find-tender.service.gov.uk
- Every OCDS release updated between 2026-09-21 and 2026-09-27 was read from the Find a Tender API and counted once. Percentages are calculated from the records that carry the field in question, and each denominator is stated. Values cover only the notices that published one. Nothing is extrapolated, and this report describes published notices rather than all UK public spending.
- Percentages are calculated from the records that carry the field being measured, and each chart states that base. Fields are missing often enough that this matters.
- This report counts notices published on Find a Tender in the period shown. It is a measure of published procurement activity, not a measure of all UK public spending. Notices can be updated or withdrawn after publication, and organisations that publish elsewhere are not included.
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Read the licence
- This report is general information, not legal or commercial advice. Nothing in it implies endorsement of eSourcing Data by any government body.
Turn the market into a pipeline
eSourcing Data runs compliant notices, evaluation, supplier management and audit trails out of the box, for buyers who publish this data and the teams who respond to it. If you want a figure in this report cut by sector, region or buyer, ask us.