Single-bid contracts in UK public procurement, October 2024 to September 2026

1. One competitive contract lot in eight under the Procurement Act 2023 received a single bid: 12.5% (1,155 of 9,256 lots in 7,104 procedures; 95% interval 11.8–13.2%; median 4 bids).
2. One in five reached the final stage with a single tender: 19.9%. In 27.4% of lots fewer tenders reached the final stage than were received, and 686 lots (7.4%) received several bids but ended with one.
3. Sector matters most. Single bids arrive in 6.1% of construction work lots and 7.3% of IT services lots, but in 24.5% of financial and insurance services lots.
4. Northern Ireland stands out: 28.5% of Procurement Act lots delivered there received a single bid and 34.2% had a single final tender, against 14.9% in the next region (Wales (Cymru)). The pattern runs across many buyers, not one.
5. Contract size makes little difference: between 10.9% and 13.5% of lots received a single bid in every value band from under £100k to £10m and over.
6. Under the older regulations 16.5% of lots received a single bid (1,367 of 8,271). These are different contracts, buyers and regions, so the gap is not an effect of the Act: see comparing the two regimes.

Award notices under the Procurement Act 2023 publish two numbers for each lot: the bids received, and the tenders still in contention at the final stage of evaluation. Tenders drop out between the two when a supplier is excluded, fails a pass or fail requirement, is not shortlisted or withdraws. Of 9,247 Procurement Act lots carrying both numbers, 27.4% had fewer tenders at the final stage than received, which is why the single-tender share rises from 12.5% to 19.9%. Notices under the older regulations publish only bids received, so this page compares regimes on bids received alone.

Buyer types are the classification the buyer gives on its notice. Under the Act most NHS bodies describe themselves as central government, so they sit in that row rather than under NHS and health.

Procurements started before 24 February 2025 continue under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, so both regimes appear in the same award window. On bids received, 12.5% of Procurement Act lots and 16.5% of older lots had a single bid. The two groups are not like for like: the older group still holds procurements launched in 2023 and 2024, and all of Scotland's devolved buyers, who procure under the Scottish regulations. Treat the gap as a description of what was awarded in the window, not as an effect of the Act.

• Source. UK Find a Tender notices (Open Contracting Data Standard), as held in the Tenderline catalogue on 10 October 2026.
• Unit. The lot, the commercial unit that receives bids. A single-lot procedure that publishes one count is one lot.
• Competitive procedures. Open and restricted or competitive routes with no direct-award transparency notice; planning notices excluded. Frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems are reported separately.
• Window. The latest published award on the procedure between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2026: the award date, or where the notice omits it (most older notices do) the date the award was published.
• Bid counts. The counts the buyer published for the lot, 1 to 200: bids received, and for Procurement Act notices also tenders at the final stage. The two are never mixed.
• Sector. The lot's primary CPV classification at division level; additional codes are ignored.
• Repeat placements. Procedures whose title is shared by more than three procedures (council category titles such as “SEND” transport placements) are left out, so one publisher's repeated mini-competitions do not weigh as much as thousands of separate contracts: 386 Procurement Act and 3,234 older lots. Including them gives 12.4% and 13.5% single-bid lots.
• Uncertainty. Wilson 95% intervals on lot counts. Lots of one procedure are not independent; counted once per procedure, 11.2% of Procurement Act and 16.4% of older procedures received a single bid on every observed lot.

• Not every award notice publishes a bid count. Of the competitive contract lots awarded in the window, 65.8% under the Procurement Act and 85.8% under the older regulations carry one. The figures describe lots with a published count; if buyers publish a count less often when a single bid arrived, the true share is higher.
• Not a judgment. This is not a measure of value for money and not a verdict on any buyer: a single bid can be a sound outcome in a specialised market.
• Frameworks are a different market. 5.0% of Procurement Act and 7.5% of older framework and dynamic purchasing system lots received a single bid; they are not in the figures above.
• Small groups. Utilities and defence contracts are too few for the tables: Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011, 56.8% of 81 lots; Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016, 38.4% of 385 lots received a single bid.

Please cite as:

Tenderline (2026). Single-bid contracts in UK public procurement, October 2024 to September 2026. Published 14 October 2026. https://tenderline.uk/research/single-bid-contracts-2024-2026

Download the aggregates (CSV): every rate on this page with its lots, procedures, single-bid count, interval and median. The figures are rebuilt by a script from the official notices; a refresh keeps this address and changes the date above. Questions or corrections: contact us.

• Market InsightsThe live UK view: who buys, competition and the early pipeline.
• Sector pagesOpen tenders, buyers and winners in each CPV division.
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