Central Departments Gave 42.5% of Award Places to Smaller Suppliers This Year

The gov.uk procurement service has published Home Office case studies showing how the department is, in its words, "increasing the number of contracts with small and medium enterprises". That prompted us to look at what the wider award data shows for central government. Our figures point to a solid but not remarkable SME presence in the places recorded on award notices.

What our records show

Across a fixed list of ministerial departments, central government recorded 42.5% of classified supplier places going to small and medium sized suppliers in the financial year to date, covering 1 April 2026 to 23 September 2026. That share counts the places on Contracts Finder award notices that were recorded as an SME, out of the places recorded as either SME or large. Departments with fewer than 30 classified places were suppressed in the extract and left out.

To judge whether 42.5% is high or low, it helps to have a baseline. The latest complete financial year across all Contracts Finder buyers, from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026, ran at 45.8% of supplier places going to SMEs. On that measure the current departmental figure sits a little below the recent all-buyer benchmark, though the two are not measuring exactly the same population.

There is one more signal worth noting. In the last 90 days, from 25 June 2026 to 23 September 2026, 32.8% of notices that record the field were marked by the buyer as suitable for smaller suppliers. That flag is a buying team judgement written on the notice, not a test of who could actually bid.

What the numbers do not say

The most important caveat is simple. These are counts of award places, not pounds. So they cannot be set against the government's 30% SME spend target, which is measured by value. A department could hand many small awards to SMEs while the bulk of its budget flows through a handful of large contracts, or the reverse. Places and spend answer different questions.

A few other limits shape how you should read these figures:

• Supplier size is taken as recorded on each notice. Places that record no size are left out rather than guessed.
• How often a size is recorded changes from year to year, which affects the annual series.
• The departmental figure is matched on the buyer name written on the notice, so agencies and arm's length bodies that buy separately are not included.
• The suitable for smaller suppliers share draws on Contracts Finder and Find a Tender only, because other sources do not record that field.

For suppliers, the practical takeaway is that award-place shares are a useful read on how open a buyer's pipeline looks, but they are not the same as who wins the money. If you want to understand where the value actually lands, our note on public sector spend data versus tender notices sets out the difference. And if you are sizing up a department before you bid, our guide to using award data to size your market walks through the method.

Where this leaves smaller suppliers

The headline case studies describe intent. Our data offers one way to sense-check it against published notices. At 42.5% of classified places this year, against a 45.8% all-buyer baseline last year, central departments are giving SMEs a meaningful share of the places on the board. Whether that converts into a fair share of spend is a separate question that award counts alone cannot answer.