UK public procurement statistics
UK public procurement statistics
A maintained reference for the numbers people actually need: how many procurement notices the UK public sector publishes, which procedures buyers use, how much sits below threshold, how many supplier places go to SMEs, and how often anyone publishes a price. Every figure carries its denominator, its period and its source, so it can be quoted safely.
Last updated
7 September 2026
Period covered
31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026
Source
Find a Tender OCDS data
Licence
Open Government Licence v3.0
Published by eSourcing Data. Updated weekly from the UK Procurement Market Report. Free to read, free to quote with attribution, no sign-up wall.
1,764
notices published
week to 6 September 2026, all notice types
327
tender notices
new opportunities, of 1,764 notices
48.9%
below threshold
720 of the 1,473 notices stating a procedure, 40.8% of all 1,764
78.2%
SME supplier places
of 5,508 suppliers with a stated size
28.2%
published a value
497 of 1,764 notices
£1,193,400
median published value
across those 497 notices
All six figures cover the seven days 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026, counted from notices published on Find a Tender. They describe published procurement activity, not total UK public spending.
Notice volumes
How much the UK public sector published in the week to 6 September 2026. A notice is a published document, not a contract: one procurement can produce a planning notice, a tender notice, updates and an award notice over its life.
In the week to 6 September 2026, 1,764 procurement notices were published on Find a Tender.
Base: all notices published in the period, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Of those, 1,025 were award notices, 327 tender notices, 168 planning notices, 215 updates and 29 cancellations.
Base: the 1,764 notices classified by type in the week to 6 September 2026. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Award notices were 58.1% of the 1,764 notices published in the week to 6 September 2026.
Base: the 1,764 notices classified by type. An award notice records a contract that has been awarded, so it is a record of completed activity, not a live opportunity. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
New opportunities, meaning tender notices, were 18.5% of the 1,764 notices published in the week to 6 September 2026.
Base: the 1,764 notices classified by type. Suppliers looking for live work should read this share, not the headline total. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
How buyers are procuring
Which route to market buyers actually used. A procedure is published on most notices but not all, so every share below is calculated from the notices that named one. That base mixes two things the Act treats separately: in the week to 6 September 2026 it was 1,473 notices, 753 naming a procedure under the Procurement Act 2023 and 720 naming a below threshold route.
83.5% of notices named the procurement procedure used, 1,473 of 1,764 in the week to 6 September 2026.
Base: all 1,764 notices published in the period. Every procedure share below is calculated from those 1,473 notices, never from the full set. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Of the 1,473 notices that named a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 753 named a procedure under the Procurement Act 2023 and 720 named a below threshold route.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. Both kinds of route are recorded in the same published field, so a share of the 1,473 is not a share of Act procedures alone. Each Act procedure below is given against both bases. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The open procedure accounted for 24.7% of the 1,473 notices that named a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 364 notices.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. Among the 753 notices that named a procedure under the Act rather than a below threshold route, those same 364 notices are 48.3%. The open procedure is a single stage competition: any supplier may bid and every compliant bid is evaluated. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The competitive flexible procedure accounted for 9.4% of the 1,473 notices that named a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 139 notices.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. Among the 753 notices that named a procedure under the Act rather than a below threshold route, those same 139 notices are 18.5%. The competitive flexible procedure is the Procurement Act 2023 route that lets a buyer design its own stages, negotiation and refinement. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Direct award accounted for 6.1% of the 1,473 notices that named a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 90 notices.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. Among the 753 notices that named a procedure under the Act rather than a below threshold route, those same 90 notices are 12%. Direct award is permitted only in the circumstances defined in the Act. It is one of several routes that involve no prior call for competition, so on its own it understates non competitive activity. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Competitions run through a dynamic market accounted for 0.2% of the 1,473 notices that named a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 3 notices.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. Among the 753 notices that named a procedure under the Act rather than a below threshold route, those same 3 notices are 0.4%. Dynamic markets replaced the Dynamic Purchasing System under the Procurement Act 2023 and are still a small share of published activity. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Routes that involve no prior call for competition accounted for 27.7% of the 1,473 notices that named a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 408 notices.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. That is 90 direct awards, 92 awards made without prior publication of a call for competition, 3 notices recorded as negotiated without publication of a contract notice and 223 below threshold awards made without competition. Direct award is only one of those routes, so its own share is not the non competitive total. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Below threshold activity
Below threshold work is the part of the market most often missed, because it rarely appears in headline spending analysis. It is where most suppliers realistically start. In the week to 6 September 2026 it was 720 notices: 40.8% of everything published and 48.9% of the notices that stated a procedure. The routes listed below cover every below threshold notice in the period, so they add to 720.
Below threshold notices were 48.9% of the 1,473 notices that stated a procedure in the week to 6 September 2026, 720 notices.
Base: the 1,473 notices stating a procedure. Below threshold procurement sits under the Act's thresholds and follows lighter rules. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Below threshold notices were 40.8% of all 1,764 notices published in the week to 6 September 2026, 720 notices.
Base: all 1,764 notices published in the period, including the 291 that did not state a procedure. This and the figure above describe the same 720 notices against different denominators, so the two are not interchangeable. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Below threshold procurement is published, but it is not always openly competed: 406 of the 720 below threshold notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 56.4%, recorded either limited competition or no competition at all.
Base: the 720 below threshold notices published in the period, of which 183 recorded limited competition and 223 recorded an award made without competition. Open competition was recorded on 232, 32.2%. Publishing an award and running a competition are different things. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Open competition, where the opportunity was advertised to any supplier, was recorded on 32.2% of the 720 below threshold notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 232 notices.
Base: the 720 below threshold notices published in the period, as recorded in the procedure field. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Awards made without competition were 31% of the 720 below threshold notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 223 notices.
Base: the 720 below threshold notices published in the period, as recorded in the procedure field. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Limited competition, where a buyer invited a selected group of suppliers, was recorded on 25.4% of the 720 below threshold notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 183 notices.
Base: the 720 below threshold notices published in the period, as recorded in the procedure field. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Notices that did not record which below threshold route was used were 7.6% of the 720 below threshold notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 55 notices.
Base: the 720 below threshold notices published in the period, as recorded in the procedure field. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Awards made under an existing framework were 3.8% of the 720 below threshold notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 27 notices.
Base: the 720 below threshold notices published in the period, as recorded in the procedure field. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
SME participation
Supplier size is recorded against the supplier parties named on award notices. It counts places on awards, not money: a supplier named on a small award counts the same as a supplier named on a large one.
SME suppliers were 78.2% of the 5,508 supplier parties that carried a stated business size on award notices in the week to 6 September 2026.
Base: the 5,508 supplier parties with a size flag. This is a share of supplier places on awards, not a share of contract value. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
That was 4,308 SME supplier places against 1,200 large supplier places in the week to 6 September 2026.
Base: the 5,508 supplier parties with a stated size on award notices. One award notice can name several suppliers, for example on a multi supplier framework. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
99.9% of the supplier parties named on award notices stated a business size in the week to 6 September 2026, 5,508 of 5,512.
Base: the 5,512 supplier parties named on award notices in the period, sized or not. Coverage of this field is high, which is why the SME share is one of the more reliable figures in UK notice data. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Sectors and regions
What is being bought and where it will be delivered. Both fields are optional on a notice and both can hold several values at once, so the shares below are of the notices that carried the field.
657 of the 1,764 notices published in the week to 6 September 2026 carried a CPV code describing what was being bought.
Base: all 1,764 notices published in the period. Every sector share below is a share of those 657 notices. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Business services: law, marketing, consulting and recruitment was the most common subject area in the week to 6 September 2026, on 15.7% of the 657 notices that carried a CPV code, 103 notices.
Base: the 657 notices carrying a CPV code. CPV describes what is being bought, not what it is worth. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The three largest subject areas in the week to 6 September 2026 were Business services: law, marketing, consulting and recruitment (15.7%), Health and social work services (15.5%), Construction work (13.7%), as shares of the 657 notices that carried a CPV code.
Base: the 657 notices carrying a CPV code. A notice can carry more than one code, so it can appear in more than one subject area and the shares do not sum to 100%. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
509 of the 1,764 notices published in the week to 6 September 2026 stated a delivery region.
Base: all 1,764 notices published in the period. Region shares are shares of those 509 notices only. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The most frequently named delivery regions in the week to 6 September 2026 were East Midlands (17.9%), West Midlands (17.9%), South East (17.9%), as shares of the 509 notices that stated one.
Base: the 509 notices stating a delivery region. A notice can name several regions, so the shares do not sum to 100%. Region comes from the delivery address, so national contracts are under represented. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The most active publisher in the week to 6 September 2026 was West Northamptonshire Council, with 47 notices.
Base: notices naming a buyer, ranked by count and not by value. A buyer that splits a programme across many lots ranks high here without necessarily buying more. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Value transparency
How much of the market publishes a price, and what those published prices look like. Read this section before quoting any total: value coverage is low and the published sum is dominated by a handful of very large notices.
A value in pounds was published on 28.2% of notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 497 of 1,764.
Base: all 1,764 notices published in the period. This is the single most important limitation in UK procurement data: most notices carry no value at all. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The median published contract value in the week to 6 September 2026 was £1,193,400.
Base: the 497 notices that published a value. The median is used because published values are heavily skewed by a few very large framework notices. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The five largest notices were 28% of the total published value in the week to 6 September 2026, and the largest single notice was £1.93bn.
Base: the 497 notices that published a value. Large notices often state the whole life value of a framework or dynamic market rather than spending in the period, so the largest figure should be read before the total is quoted. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Published values in the week to 6 September 2026 summed to £23.65bn across 497 notices, which is a sum of published values and not a measure of UK public spending.
Base: the 497 notices that published a value, £23,647,583,332 in full. The figure is never scaled up to estimate a national total. Source: Find a Tender, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
The rules behind the numbers
These do not change week to week. They are the legal framework the notices above are published under, stated so that each sentence stands on its own.
The Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025.
It governs procurement by contracting authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland runs its own regime.
The Procurement Act 2023 replaced the Dynamic Purchasing System with the Dynamic Market.
Utilities qualification systems were replaced in the same way, by utilities dynamic markets.
A dynamic market is permanently open to new applicants and its membership cannot be capped.
This is the structural difference from a framework agreement, which closes to new suppliers once it is awarded.
Applications to join a dynamic market must be assessed within a reasonable time, and a pending application must be considered before a competition concludes.
A supplier that applies during a live competition cannot simply be left out of it.
Utilities in water, energy and transport may charge suppliers membership and award fees for a utilities dynamic market, and may run member only tenders.
General contracting authorities may not charge suppliers a membership fee to join a dynamic market.
Procedures under the Procurement Act 2023 include the open procedure and the competitive flexible procedure, with direct award available in defined circumstances and separate rules below threshold.
The competitive flexible procedure replaced the fixed multi stage procedures of the previous regime.
A mandatory standstill period of at least eight working days applies before a contracting authority enters into a contract, subject to exceptions.
It runs from the day the contract award notice is published and gives unsuccessful suppliers a window to challenge.
Source: the Procurement Act 2023 and the official guidance published alongside it, explained document by document in the Procurement Library. General information, not legal advice.
Methodology, and what these numbers are not
Read this before quoting anything above. The limitations are not footnotes, they change what the figures mean.
What this data is
These figures count notices published on Find a Tender, the UK central notice service, in the period stated. They describe published procurement activity. They are not a measure of total UK public spending, they do not include buyers who publish only elsewhere, and notices can be updated or withdrawn after publication.
Counted, not modelled
Every number here is a direct count of published OCDS releases, or a percentage of those counts. There is no sampling, no modelling and no AI generated figure anywhere in the pipeline. One kind of number is not exact and is labelled where it appears: where a record count can only be recovered from a percentage the edition published rounded to one decimal place, it is written with the word about in front of it and is accurate to within a few records. Everything without that word is counted. The same week of data always produces the same numbers, so anyone with the source data can reproduce them.
Denominators are always stated
UK notices are not uniformly complete. A contract value appears on a minority of notices, a procurement procedure on most but not all, and a supplier size flag only on award notices. Every percentage here is calculated from the records that carry the field being measured, and the record count is printed with the figure.
Two denominators, never mixed
The most common mistake with UK notice data is quoting a share of one base as a share of another. A procedure is published on most notices but not all, so a share of the notices that stated a procedure is not a share of everything published. Below threshold activity is given both ways on this page and every sentence names the base it used. The procedure field also holds Act procedures and below threshold routes together, so shares of Act procedures alone are given separately. Supplier size is counted against supplier parties named on award notices, not against notices at all.
Why the median, not the mean
Published contract values are extremely skewed: a handful of framework and dynamic market notices state a whole life value in the billions, which drags any average far above the typical contract. The median describes the middle notice and is the honest headline. Where a total is shown, it is described as a sum of published values and nothing more.
A notice can be counted in more than one group
Sector and region breakdowns come from the CPV codes and delivery regions published on a notice, and a notice can carry several of each. Group counts therefore add up to more than the number of notices involved, so each share is given against the notices that carried the field, never against the group counts added together.
Source and licence
Source: Find a Tender, via its open OCDS API. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These statistics are published by eSourcing Data, an independent procurement software and services company. Nothing here implies endorsement by any government body, and none of it is legal advice.
Field coverage in the week to 6 September 2026
| Field | Published on | What it means for the figures |
|---|---|---|
| Contract value | 28.2% 497 of 1,764 notices | Value figures cover those notices only and are never scaled up. |
| Procurement procedure | 83.5% 1,473 of 1,764 notices | Procedure and below threshold shares use this base. It holds Act procedures and below threshold routes together, 753 and 720 notices. |
| Procurement category | 45.7% 807 of 1,764 notices | A broad goods, services or works label. No figure on this page is calculated from it, and it is reported separately from the CPV code. |
| Supplier size flag | 99.9% 5,508 of 5,512 supplier parties on award notices | The SME share is one of the better covered fields in UK notice data. The base is supplier parties, not notices. |
| CPV code | 37.2% 657 of 1,764 notices | Sector shares use this base. A notice can carry several codes. |
| Delivery region | 28.9% 509 of 1,764 notices | Region shares use this base. A notice can name several regions. |
Each row reads as a share and the records behind it, for the week to 6 September 2026. Every count in this table is a direct count of published records.
- Source: Find a Tender, the UK central notice service, via its open OCDS API. find-tender.service.gov.uk
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Read the licence
- Nothing on this page implies endorsement of eSourcing Data by any government body, and none of it is legal or commercial advice.
How to cite this page
Quote any figure above, in research, journalism, a business case or an AI generated answer. We ask only that the attribution travels with the number, because a procurement statistic without its denominator and its period is misleading.
Suggested citation
eSourcing Data (2026) UK public procurement statistics, 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026. https://esourcingdata.com/resources/procurement-statistics (accessed [date]). Underlying data: Find a Tender, Open Government Licence v3.0.
Canonical URL
https://esourcingdata.com/resources/procurement-statistics
Publisher
eSourcing Data, an independent UK procurement software and services company.
Underlying data licence
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The counts and analysis are produced by eSourcing Data; please credit both.
Always quote with
the denominator, the period and the source. For example: 78.2% of the 5,508 supplier parties with a stated business size on award notices, week to 6 September 2026, Find a Tender.
Common questions
The questions people ask about UK procurement numbers, answered in full sentences that carry their own denominators.
How many public contracts are advertised in the UK?
In the week to 6 September 2026, 1,764 procurement notices were published on Find a Tender, the UK central notice service. That figure includes every notice type: 327 were tender notices advertising a new opportunity and 1,025 were award notices recording a contract already awarded. It counts published notices in one week, not contracts and not total UK public spending. Source: eSourcing Data, counted from Find a Tender OCDS data for 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
What share of UK public contracts go to SMEs?
In the week to 6 September 2026, SME suppliers were 78.2% of the 5,508 supplier parties that carried a stated business size on award notices, 4,308 SME places against 1,200 large supplier places. Those 5,508 sized records came from 5,512 supplier parties named on award notices in the week, so 99.9% of them stated a size. This is a share of supplier places on published awards, not a share of contract value, because most notices do not publish a value. Source: eSourcing Data, counted from Find a Tender OCDS data for 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
How many UK procurement notices publish a value?
A value in pounds was published on 28.2% of notices in the week to 6 September 2026, 497 of 1,764. The median across those 497 notices was £1,193,400. Because coverage is this low and the published total is concentrated in a few very large framework notices, published values cannot be summed into a national spending figure. Source: eSourcing Data, counted from Find a Tender OCDS data for 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
How much UK public procurement is below threshold?
In the week to 6 September 2026, 720 below threshold notices were published on Find a Tender. That is 40.8% of the 1,764 notices published in the week, and 48.9% of the 1,473 notices that stated a procurement procedure. The two figures describe the same notices against different denominators, so they should not be swapped for each other. Below threshold procurement sits under the Procurement Act 2023 thresholds and follows lighter rules. It is published, but it is not always competed: 31% of those 720 notices recorded an award made without competition. Source: eSourcing Data, counted from Find a Tender OCDS data for 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
How much UK public procurement is awarded without competition?
In the week to 6 September 2026, 408 of the 1,473 notices that named a procurement procedure recorded a route involving no prior call for competition, 27.7%. That is 90 direct awards, 92 awards made without prior publication of a call for competition, 3 notices recorded as negotiated without publication of a contract notice and 223 below threshold awards made without competition. Direct award, the route named in the Procurement Act 2023, is only one of them, at 6.1% of the 1,473 notices, so it should not be quoted as the whole of non competitive award activity. Source: eSourcing Data, counted from Find a Tender OCDS data for 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Which sectors publish the most UK procurement notices?
In the week to 6 September 2026, Business services: law, marketing, consulting and recruitment was the most common subject area, on 15.7% of the 657 notices that carried a CPV code, 103 notices. CPV describes what is being bought rather than what it is worth, and a notice can carry more than one code. Source: eSourcing Data, counted from Find a Tender OCDS data for 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
When did the Procurement Act 2023 come into force?
The Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025. It replaced the Dynamic Purchasing System with the Dynamic Market, replaced utilities qualification systems with utilities dynamic markets, and introduced the competitive flexible procedure alongside the open procedure.
What replaced the Dynamic Purchasing System in the UK?
The Dynamic Market replaced the Dynamic Purchasing System when the Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025. A dynamic market is permanently open to new applicants, its membership cannot be capped, applications must be assessed within a reasonable time, and a pending application must be considered before a competition concludes. Utilities in water, energy and transport use utilities dynamic markets and may charge suppliers membership and award fees; general contracting authorities may not charge membership fees.
Where do these UK procurement statistics come from?
They are counted by eSourcing Data from the OCDS release packages published by Find a Tender, the UK central notice service, for the period stated. Every figure is a direct count, or a percentage of those counts, with its denominator printed alongside it. Nothing is sampled, modelled or generated by an AI system. Where a record count can only be recovered from a percentage published rounded to one decimal place, it is written with the word about in front of it and is the only kind of number here that is not exact. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Where these figures come from, and what they mean
The weekly report holds the full breakdown behind every number on this page. The library explains the rules those notices are published under. The definition pages explain the terms used above.
The weekly UK Procurement Market Report
Every figure on this page in full, week by week. Latest edition: 31 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
Read it →The Procurement Library
Plain English explainers of 77 official UK procurement documents: the Procurement Act 2023 guidance series, Procurement Policy Notes and the commercial playbooks.
Read it →What a Dynamic Market is
The permanently open supplier market that replaced the Dynamic Purchasing System, including the utilities fee rules.
Read it →What the Procurement Act 2023 does
The regime that came into force on 24 February 2025, and what changed for buyers and suppliers.
Read it →Below threshold procurement explained
The rules behind the 720 below threshold notices published in the week to 6 September 2026, 40.8% of everything published, and how suppliers get in front of them.
Read it →What eSourcing is
The definitions behind the terminology used across these statistics: procedures, ITT, evaluation and award.
Read it →Need a figure cut a different way?
We hold the underlying notice data and count it every week. If you need this by sector, by region, by buyer or over a longer period, ask and we will run it. eSourcing Data also turns these rules into working procurement software: compliant notices, evaluation, supplier management, audit trails and reporting.