City AM reports a warning from opposition MPs about the government's reliance on overseas technology, with the Liberal Democrats accusing ministers of handing "contract after contract to foreign tech oligarchs". That is a political claim about who wins public work. We cannot judge motives or value for money, but we can test one measurable part of it. Do a small number of large suppliers really dominate the awards being published right now?
Our records let us look at how widely award places are spread across supplier groups on Contracts Finder. Here is what the data shows for this financial year to date.
How concentrated are the awards
Between 1 April 2026 and 18 September 2026, the twenty busiest supplier groups hold 9.1% of resolved award places on Contracts Finder. That figure is based on 10,909 resolved places, where we count one place for each supplier group on each award and collapse frameworks and their lots into a single award.
A share of 9.1% for the twenty busiest groups means the other roughly nine tenths of places are spread across a much wider field. That does not disprove concerns about specific markets or specific buyers, but it does not fit a picture of a tiny club taking most of the work.
At the individual level, the most award notices won by one supplier group this financial year to date is 123. That is a busy supplier by any measure, yet it is one group among thousands of places recorded.
A few things are worth keeping in mind when reading these counts:
- These are counts of places on award notices, not contract values and not a measure of how work was delivered.
- Suppliers are grouped by name, so a single firm can appear under several legal names, and a group holds the variants we have resolved to one entity.
- A supplier whose name we have not resolved to a group is not counted, so the denominator is the places we could resolve.
- Our records cover Contracts Finder only, and they begin on 17 December 2014.
Where SMEs sit in the picture
Concentration among the largest groups is only half the story. The other half is how far work reaches smaller firms. In the same period, SMEs account for 45.1% of supplier places on award notices, measured as the share recorded as small or medium sized out of the places recorded as either SME or large.
That share comes with its own caveat. Supplier size is taken as recorded on each notice, and about a fifth of places record no size at all, so those are left out of the calculation. It counts award places rather than spend, so it cannot be set against the SME spend target of 30 per cent, which is measured in money.
For a small supplier, the practical takeaway is that award places remain widely distributed, and the busiest single group still only appears on a modest fraction of the total. If you want to understand your own slice of a market rather than the national headline, our guide on how to size your market using award data walks through the method, and the piece on how an award notice works explains what each notice does and does not tell you.
These figures come from KimonBids analysis of Contracts Finder notices. They describe published awards, not procurement policy in the round. Whether the country is too reliant on overseas technology firms is a separate question that award place counts cannot settle. What the data can do is give small and medium suppliers a factual baseline against which the political claims can be read.
Frequently asked questions
Does 9.1% mean the top suppliers dominate public contracts?
No. The twenty busiest supplier groups hold 9.1% of resolved award places on Contracts Finder this financial year to date, based on 10,909 resolved places. That leaves the large majority of places spread across a much wider field.
Are these figures about contract values?
No. They are counts of places on award notices, not values and not a measure of how work was delivered. A single busy award can be small in money terms, and a single large contract counts as one place.
How far back do these records go?
Our records cover Contracts Finder only and begin on 17 December 2014. The figures quoted here run from 1 April 2026 to 18 September 2026.
Why might a supplier be missing from the counts?
Suppliers are grouped by name, so a firm can appear under several legal names. A supplier whose name we have not resolved to a group is not counted, so the denominator is the places we could resolve.
