Direct awards
Contracts awarded without competition
10,438 UK public contracts worth £98bn were awarded without open competition in the last 12 months. See which buyers and suppliers are involved.
Most public contracts must be advertised so any supplier can bid. The rules allow exceptions: extreme urgency, only one supplier able to do the work (for example because of exclusive rights), extensions to existing contracts, and call-offs from frameworks where suppliers competed earlier. A contract appearing here is not evidence of wrongdoing. It means the buyer published a notice saying it used one of these routes.
Under the Procurement Act 2023, most direct awards need a transparency notice before the contract is signed, so they can be challenged. Each contract page links to the official notice, which gives the buyer's stated justification.
- Contracts (last 12 months)
- 10,438
- Published value
- £98bnwhere stated
- Without competition
- 100%10,438 contracts
- Won by SMEs
- 47%of 10,087 with size known
Biggest buyers
By number of contracts, last 12 months.
-
NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board 372 contracts · £5.65bn
-
NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board 288 contracts · £33.2m
-
NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board 210 contracts · £974m
-
NHS Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board 171 contracts · £125m
-
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board 159 contracts · £17.5m
-
NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board 128 contracts · £45.7m
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Cambridgeshire County Council 109 contracts · £2.13m
-
Partners Procurement Service (PPS) 108 contracts · £14.7m
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NHS England 98 contracts · £382m
Top suppliers
By number of contracts, last 12 months.
-
Softcat 104 contracts · £204m
-
Phoenix Software Limited 66 contracts · £102m
-
Insight Direct (UK) Ltd 48 contracts · £42.3m
-
Civica UK Limited 48 contracts · £14m
-
Constellia Public Ltd SME 36 contracts · £8.7m
-
Aecom 27 contracts · £4m
-
Waterman Aspen Ltd 26 contracts · £2.31m
-
CDW Ltd 25 contracts · £18m
-
Herts and Essex Fertility Centre Limited SME 24 contracts · —
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Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust SME 23 contracts · £26.9m
By sector
-
Health & social care 4,550 contracts · £81.1bn
-
IT services 805 contracts · £1.04bn
-
Software & information systems 786 contracts · £524m
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Business services 644 contracts · £1.86bn
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Construction work 532 contracts · £1.55bn
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Architecture & engineering 502 contracts · £271m
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Repair & maintenance 313 contracts · £971m
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Vehicles & transport equipment 284 contracts · £1.52bn
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Education & training 262 contracts · £91.2m
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Medical equipment & pharmaceuticals 217 contracts · £813m