Free Guide: Cambridge Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Cambridge City Council · Non-metropolitan district · East of England
Data covering 2015 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£1.9bn
Transactions
103,284
Suppliers
2,829
Key Takeaways
- £1.88 billion in recorded spend across 103,284 transactions since 2015
- 48.6% of matched spend goes to construction suppliers, dominated by five firms
- 66 tenders worth £270 million are tracked, split evenly between open and direct routes
How big a buyer is Cambridge City Council?
Bigger than you might expect for a non-metropolitan district of 125,000 people in just 15.8 square miles. Our data covers £1.88 billion in recorded spend across 103,284 transactions, drawn from 21 source files and spanning 2015 to 2026. That is a serious volume of purchasing for a city council. The spending records show 2,829 identified suppliers and 2,880 matched supplier records, so there is a broad base of firms doing business here. On the contracts side, we have tracked 22 published contracts worth a combined £698,181, plus 66 tenders valued at over £270 million. The gap between those two figures tells you something: most of the big-ticket spend flows through tender processes rather than smaller published contracts. If you are sizing up Cambridge as a prospect, the transactional volume alone makes it worth a closer look.
Construction dominates, but who's actually getting paid?
Construction accounts for 48.6% of all matched spend, pulling in £503 million across 274 suppliers. Hill Partnerships Limited sits at the top with £194.6 million, followed by Cambridge Investment Partnership LLP at £94.3 million. Four of the top five suppliers by spend are construction firms. The HHI score sits at 636, which is unconcentrated, but the top five suppliers still account for 48.2% of recorded spend and the top ten take 63.3%. So while the market is not locked up by one or two players, a handful of firms are clearly doing the heavy lifting. Professional and technical services comes in third at 6.8% of spend with 393 suppliers, making it the most fragmented sector by supplier count. Outside construction, spend is spread thinly. Admin and support services, IT, manufacturing, and arts and recreation each sit below 5%. Worth noting that 26.7% of spend sits in the "Unknown" sector category, where we have not been able to match supplier SIC codes.
Is there room to compete on tenders?
Of the seven contracts where we have procurement method data, four went through open tender and three were direct awards. That is a fairly even split, though the sample is small enough that you should not read too much into it. The median contract value comes in at £80,000, with six contracts below the procurement threshold and just one above it. The tender pipeline is where the real action is: 66 tenders worth £270 million across the records we hold, sourced from procontract.due-north.com, cambridge.gov.uk, and Find a Tender. That pipeline dwarfs the published contract values, which suggests Cambridge routes most of its larger spending through formal tender processes. For a district council, that volume of tendered work is striking. Whether those opportunities suit your business depends on sector, but the data points to a council that does put work out to market.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HILL PARTNERSHIPS LIMITED | £194,625,324 |
| 2 | CAMBRIDGE INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP LLP | £94,307,628 |
| 3 | FOSTER PROPERTY MAINTENANCE LIMITED | £76,388,124 |
| 4 | CWRP RELOCATION LIMITED | £70,792,653 |
| 5 | FREETHS LLP | £62,840,909 |
| 6 | CIP ORCHARD PARK L2 LLP | £42,322,920 |
| 7 | COMENSURA LIMITED | £38,722,505 |
| 8 | CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY HOMES LIMITED | £32,021,558 |
| 9 | ARAN INSULATION LIMITED | £28,209,915 |
| 10 | KEEPMOAT HOMES LIMITED | £15,083,520 |
About Us
CouncilLedger brings together spending records, contract awards, and tender notices from over 400 UK local authorities into one procurement intelligence platform. Our data covers 16 years of transactions, collected directly from council transparency publications and government procurement platforms. Search suppliers, track spending trends, discover tender opportunities, and monitor the contracts that matter to your business.
