Find a TenderAwarded without competitionTransparency notice
Published 2 Nov 2026, 12:59 GMT

Official UK procurement notice

LinkedIn Contract Renewal · UK public procurement notice

Official notice

Authority: DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS (Central government)

Direct awardSME suitableVCSE suitable
Sectors: Business Services & Consultancy (79) Delivery: Delivery location not published
Awarded value£967,554published award · exc. VAT
Award in standstill Not publishedno call for competition
Award (standstill) to LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company
Notice summaryFrom the published notice

We have an existing contract (Contract Number: C22135) with LinkedIn that we wish to continue in order to support our recruitment activities across Defra group. We particularly need to focus on attracting niche / specialist skills across professions such as Science, Digital, Analysts, Project Management, Veterinarians, etc,. In addition, LinkedIn will be a solution utilised within Synergy Recruitment activities, so we need to maintain continuity of service provision. LinkedIn can be used by recruiters to directly approach and target individuals with skills / capabilities required.

What is being bought

Published requirement description

We have an existing contract (Contract Number: C22135) with LinkedIn that we wish to continue in order to support our recruitment activities across Defra group. We particularly need to focus on attracting niche / specialist skills across professions such as Science, Digital, Analysts, Project Management, Veterinarians, etc,. In addition, LinkedIn will be a solution utilised within Synergy Recruitment activities, so we need to maintain continuity of service provision. The following are more details on what we utilise LinkedIn for:

  1. Increase Employer Brand Awareness

LinkedIn is the recognised number 1 / market leader for recruitment marketing and talent attraction and is the only tool that allows us to directly engage and build relationships with potential candidates, especially for niche / specialist and hard to fill roles.

  1. Automated Job Posting

LinkedIn has automated job posting capability, ensuring that Defra group roles are continually being promoted in the marketplace. The contract provides an agreed number of job slots based on the volume of activity across Defra group. We can use these job slots to ensure targeting is more impactful and supports the various Defra group and Government agendas. This saves the need for manual entry and management of all advertised roles across Defra group organisations.

  1. Direct Candidate Sourcing

LinkedIn can be used by recruiters to directly approach and target individuals with skills / capabilities required. Recruiters can build relationships with passive candidates (those not actively seeking roles), attracting them to apply for opportunities within our organisations.

  1. Target Marketing

Using workforce planning intelligence and demand planning, we build organisation and campaign specific 'Life Pages'. These are always on and visible to the public. These allows us to showcase organisational cultures, benefits and opportunities. When required we can amend the content to become more focused on specific careers / skills. These can be targeted to reach passive talent (candidates not actively seeking roles).

  1. Labour Market Intelligence

Access to the LMI tool provides further intelligence to support business decisions regarding sourcing locations aligned to property strategy and where untapped sources of talent may exist geographically.

Whilst the primary purpose of investing in LinkedIn is to increase brand awareness and candidate attraction, it will have benefits on wider organisational objectives including workforce transformation; agility; place; skills/capabilities; devolution etc and the wider Civil Service workforce strategies around improving capability; place; digital; innovation and delivery.

LinkedIn are the only supplier with the expertise and product to complete the task and requirements. They are the number one / market leader in this area. In addition, Synergy will utilise LinkedIn services, so we need to maintain our service provision in readiness.

As with the previous contract renewal we have explored contract options including 'A la Carte' and the 'Hiring Enterprise Option'. Utilising the HEP we will achieve a cost saving of £294,462 over the 3 years duration of the contract. We achieve greater economies of scale by having a single Defra group contract rather than each organisation procuring directly with LinkedIn. Additional benefits are that we reduce the need to spend money on external advertising providers and recruitment agencies.

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published
Lot #1AwardedSMEVCSE
Eligibility: SME eligibleVCSE eligible

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast
Awards 1some still in standstill
Awarded value £967,5541 award exc. VAT
Awarded toValueDateStatus
LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company14 Nov 2026 – 13 Nov 2029£967,554—Standstill

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record
Procedure method
Direct award
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Notice status
Awarded without competition
Procurement threshold
Unspecified in notice
Regulatory regime
Standard
Commercial structure
Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type
Direct award (no call for competition)
GPA / WTO covered
Unspecified in notice
Recurring procurement
Unspecified in notice
First published
2 Nov 2026, 12:59 GMT
Last source update
2 Nov 2026, 12:59 GMT
Authority reference
P-41166
FTS notice number
2026/S 000-103720
Latest notice
Transparency notice (UK5)
Delivery area
Not published
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-079592 Find a Tender
Why no open competition
Single Suppliers Unique Work Art Performance
Published justification

Sole supplier

Notice history

2 events · 1 release on Find a Tender · since 2 Nov 2026
  1. Transparency notice published
    2 Nov 2026, 12:59 GMT
    UK5
  2. Contract signature expected
    3 Nov 2026, 23:59 GMT
    scheduled

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

Contracting authorityPublic authority - central government GB-PPON: PNBD-3289-CDGX Seacole Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, London, SW1P 4DFContact name, email, phone

Bidders & participating suppliers

1 commercial party on the notice

Official documents & specifications (1)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure

  • Transparency notice awardTransparency noticeUK5Transparency notice on Find a Tender