A snapshot of 82,867 public sector procurement notices published across the UK in the 12 months to July 2026, drawn from the most comprehensive live view of UK tendering. Free to read, free to cite.
In the 12 months to July 2026, TenderSignal recorded 82,867 public sector procurement notices published across the United Kingdom, an average of roughly 6,900 every month. When you group those notices by the type of body that published them, one buyer group stands out clearly: local councils account for more than two in every five notices.
| Buyer type | Notices (12 months) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Local councils | 35,874 | 43.3% |
| Other / unclassified | 18,878 | 22.8% |
| NHS and healthcare | 9,319 | 11.2% |
| Central government | 9,203 | 11.1% |
| Education | 3,372 | 4.1% |
| Other public bodies | 3,074 | 3.7% |
| Housing associations | 1,719 | 2.1% |
| Utilities | 1,421 | 1.7% |
The practical takeaway for suppliers is that local government, not Whitehall, is where the volume is. A business that can serve councils has a far larger addressable market by notice count than one focused only on central departments, even though individual central government contracts are often larger.
Ranked by the number of notices published, the most active single buyers over the period were a mix of central government, research funders, the NHS and large county councils.
| Buyer | Notices (12 months) |
|---|---|
| Ministry of Defence | 964 |
| UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) | 945 |
| NHS England | 909 |
| Hampshire County Council | 591 |
| National Highways | 564 |
| Suffolk County Council | 499 |
| Leicester City Council | 465 |
| West Sussex County Council | 435 |
| Department for Education | 426 |
Not every procurement notice is a live opportunity to bid. Of the 82,867 notices, 15,827 were open tender opportunities and 37,106 were contract award notices, which record who won a contract rather than inviting new bids. The remainder were prior information notices, pipeline and planning notices, amendments and cancellations. Award notices are valuable in their own right: they show which suppliers are winning work with which buyers, which is the raw material for competitor research.
Of all UK notices in the period, 13,187 (around 16%) carried signals that the opportunity is realistically accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises, for example lower contract values, lotting, or explicit SME encouragement. Separately, 539 notices related to Dynamic Purchasing Systems and similar open frameworks, which let suppliers join an approved list at any time rather than waiting for a single tender window. Both are routes worth watching for smaller firms, and both are easy to miss if you only check one or two portals.
This snapshot covers procurement notices with a United Kingdom buyer, published in the 12 months to July 2026, as aggregated by TenderSignal from over 140 UK and Irish procurement sources including Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and buyer portals used by councils, the NHS, universities and central government. Notices are grouped by buyer type using TenderSignal's authority classification; the "Other / unclassified" group covers buyers not yet mapped to a standard category. Figures count published notices, not contract values, because advertised values are inconsistently reported at source. This is a point-in-time snapshot rather than a year-on-year trend, as coverage has expanded over the period.
You are welcome to cite and republish these figures with attribution to "TenderSignal" and a link to this page (https://www.tendersignal.co.uk/procurement-pulse). For bespoke cuts of the data by sector, region or buyer, or for a comment on UK procurement trends, please get in touch.
It is a free snapshot of UK public sector procurement activity, based on the notices TenderSignal aggregates from more than 140 UK and Irish sources. This edition covers the 82,867 notices published in the 12 months to July 2026.
Yes. The figures are free to cite and republish with attribution to TenderSignal and a link to this page. For custom breakdowns by sector, region or buyer, please get in touch.
Advertised contract values are reported inconsistently across the many source portals, so summing them produces unreliable totals. Counting published notices is a robust, comparable measure of procurement activity.
We refresh the snapshot periodically. Each edition is a fixed point-in-time report so that the figures remain stable and citable. The date of the current edition is shown at the top of the page.