Research
The UK public sector renewal horizon
Every public contract with a published end date is a re-tender with a date already attached. Counted up, they show how much work comes back to market and when. These are the figures behind that, free to use, with the method written down so they can be checked rather than believed.
New: the SME tracker, showing how much public sector work goes to small firms, by department, council, NHS trust and region, beside each department's published target.
- Contracts ending in 18 months
- 61,660
- 7 November 2026 to 8 May 2028
- Recorded value
- £504bn
- Across the 57,229 of 61,660 that published one
- Buying organisations
- 3,962
- Named on the notices in this window
- Busiest quarter
- Q1 2027
- 16,815 contracts end in those three months
Read from the live database on 7 November 2026. The window moves with the date, so a figure quoted from this page should carry the day it was taken.
NewBudget 2026: what it means for public sector suppliersPaul Noon's briefing, 28 October 2026: the January and March 2027 rule changes, where the AI, defence and energy money goes, and what bid teams should do now.Read the briefing →NewQuarterly report: UK public procurement, July to September 20269,385 contracts awarded, 45.2% to SMEs, by category, buyer and region, with the renewals ahead.Read the report →When it lands
The work does not arrive evenly
Re-procurement usually starts three to six months before a contract ends, and longer for anything complex. A quarter with twice the contracts of the one before it is a quarter in which procurement teams are doing twice the work, and in which bidders face twice the competition for attention.
The peak inside this window falls in Q1 2027, when 16,815 contracts reach their end date. Work back six months and the scoping for those is happening now.
The first and last bars are clipped by the window rather than genuinely quiet, so neither is counted as the peak.
Contracts ending per quarter
By sector
What is coming back to market
Grouped by the CPV code on the award notice, which is the classification the buyer chose when it published. A contract carries one code, so nothing is counted in two sectors.
60,141 of the 61,660 contracts in this window sit in one of these categories. The rest carry no CPV code on the notice, or a code outside them, so this column is not meant to add up to the headline figure.
By type of buyer
Who is re-letting it
Buyers write their own names on notices and are inconsistent about it, so these groups are matched on the name rather than on a register. Good enough to show shape, and stated here as a grouping rather than an official taxonomy.
| Type of buyer | Contracts ending | Published a value | Total of those values |
|---|---|---|---|
| Councils and local authorities | 23,848 | 21,618 | £68bn |
| Other public bodies | 16,271 | 15,279 | £119bn |
| NHS and health | 7,977 | 7,925 | £184bn |
| Central government and agencies | 6,371 | 6,287 | £115bn |
| Universities, colleges and schools | 3,085 | 2,591 | £5bn |
| Police, fire and justice | 2,136 | 1,933 | £2bn |
| Housing associations | 1,972 | 1,596 | £13bn |
Take the data
Download any of it
No account, no form, no email address. Each file carries the window and the counting rule in its header, because a spreadsheet gets separated from the page it came from within about a day.
Contracts ending by sector
Every CPV category, with the number of contracts ending in the window, how many of those published a value, and the total of those values.
Download CSV
Contracts ending by type of buyer
The same figures grouped by what kind of organisation is buying: NHS, councils, education, police and fire, housing, central government.
Download CSV
Contracts ending by quarter
The renewal horizon quarter by quarter, showing where the peak falls. The first and last quarters are clipped by the window.
Download CSV
Want the contracts themselves, a single region, or one council? Write to paul@professor-ai.co.uk and say what you are working on. No charge and no conditions.
Method
How these numbers were produced
- The window
- Contracts whose published end date falls between 7 November 2026 and 8 May 2028, which is today plus 548 days. It moves daily, so the figure moves with it.
- One contract, once
- The source data holds one row per award-supplier pair. A framework awarded to twelve suppliers is twelve rows carrying the same value. Everything here groups by the contract identifier first, so a framework counts once and its ceiling is added once.
- Money
- Summed only across the 57,229 contracts that published a value, 93% of the total. Anything above £10bn is dropped as a data entry error rather than a contract.
- What is missing
- Award notices that publish no end date, which is a large share of them, and anything never published to a national portal. Every figure here is a floor.
How to cite this data
Tender Radar (2026) The UK public sector renewal horizon [Dataset]. Professor AI. Available at: https://tender-radar.co.uk/research (Accessed: 7 November 2026).
The underlying records are published by public bodies under the Open Government Licence v3.0 and can be used freely. Attribution to Tender Radar is not required by the licence, only appreciated, because it lets a reader find the method.
Working to a deadline? Write to paul@professor-ai.co.uk.
For journalists and researchers
Ask the data from Claude or ChatGPT
Free research access to Tender Radar's AI connector, with no account to open. Add one address to Claude or ChatGPT and ask in plain English: which agency staffing contracts end in the next six months, which suppliers have won grounds maintenance work for councils, or what a particular buyer has awarded and to whom. Every answer carries how it was counted and links to the original notices.
Write to paul@professor-ai.co.uk with your name, publication or institution, and what you are working on.
Common questions
Using this data
How many UK public sector contracts come up for renewal in the next 18 months?
61,660 contracts held by UK public bodies have a published end date between 7 November 2026 and 8 May 2028. They are held by 3,962 buying organisations. Not every award notice publishes an end date, so the real number is higher, which makes this a floor rather than an estimate.
Can I use these figures in an article?
Yes, with no permission needed and no charge. The underlying data is published by public bodies under the Open Government Licence. A link back to this page is appreciated so readers can see the method, and it means the figure can be re-checked after it moves.
How is a contract counted?
Once. The source data holds one row per award-supplier pair, so a framework awarded to twelve suppliers appears twelve times, each row carrying the whole contract's value. Counting those rows overstates contracts and summing them multiplies framework ceilings, in one real case by 4.6 times. Every figure here groups by the contract identifier first.
Why do the money figures not cover every contract?
Because not every notice publishes a value. Of the 61,660 contracts in this window, 57,229 published one, which is 93%. Every total here is summed across those only, and the count it came from is printed beside it. Values above £10bn are excluded as data entry errors: one buyer published a framework at £150bn, twenty times over.
Can I get a cut that is not on this page?
Yes. A region, a single council, one sector, or the contract level detail behind any figure here. Write to paul@professor-ai.co.uk and say what you are working on. There is no charge and no condition attached.
Contract data on this page is sourced from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder and published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains public sector information licensed under that licence. Figures cover contract award notices published from January 2021 onward, with comprehensive coverage from 2023. Earlier contracts, and any award not published to Find a Tender or Contracts Finder, will not appear.
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