Free Guide: Dacorum Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Dacorum Borough Council · Non-metropolitan district · East of England
Data covering 2011 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£2.5bn
Transactions
180,084
Suppliers
703
Key Takeaways
- £2.5 billion in recorded spend across 180,084 transactions since 2011
- 43% of matched supplier spend goes to financial and insurance firms
- 703 identified suppliers but the top 5 account for 64.7% of spend
£2.5 billion over 15 years: how big a buyer is Dacorum?
For a non-metropolitan district of 155,000 people in Hertfordshire, Dacorum moves a lot of money. Our dataset covers £2.5 billion in recorded spend across 180,084 transactions, drawn from 129 source files published between 2011 and 2026. That is a deep and long-running spending record. On the contracts side, the picture is thinner. We've tracked 96 published contracts worth a combined £1 million, plus 117 tenders valued at £453 million. The gap between transaction-level spend and formal contract values is worth noting. It suggests much of the council's purchasing flows through smaller, routine payments rather than large packaged contracts. Median contract value sits at £300,000 across the three contracts with method data, which points to mid-range procurements rather than mega-deals. If you're looking at Dacorum as a prospect, the volume of day-to-day spend is where the real story sits.
One insurance supplier dominates. Who else is in the mix?
Ace Insurance and Financial Services sits well clear at the top with £8.5 million in recorded spend, more than four times the next supplier. That single relationship pulls the financial and insurance sector to 43.4% of all matched spend, which is unusually top-heavy. Professional and technical services comes second at 22.2%, spread across 72 identified suppliers, making it a far more fragmented market. After those two sectors, spending drops off sharply. Waste management, water, IT and admin services each sit between 5% and 6.6%. The HHI score is 1,659, moderately concentrated, and the top five suppliers account for 64.7% of matched spend. Strip out the insurance block and concentration would look quite different. Across the 703 suppliers we've identified, the long tail is extensive. Wholesale and retail trade alone has 205 matched suppliers but only 1.3% of spend. Lots of small transactions, few dominant players outside finance.
Only three contracts with method data. What can we actually tell?
Here's where the data gets sparse. Of the contracts we hold procurement method data for, there are just three, all above threshold. Two went through open tender and one was a direct award. That is too small a sample to draw firm conclusions about Dacorum's buying habits. What we can say is that the tender pipeline is more informative. With 117 tenders on record worth £453 million, there is clearly active procurement happening. The council publishes through its own webapps portal and Find a Tender, so opportunities do surface in the usual places. The median contract value of £300,000 suggests mid-tier work is the sweet spot in formal procurement. But given that 180,084 transactions sit underneath those contracts, a huge volume of spending never reaches formal tender stage. For suppliers working below contract thresholds, the transaction data may tell you more about where Dacorum actually spends than the contract register does.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ACE INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL SERVICES LTD | £8,498,381 |
| 2 | ATHENA FM FACILITIES MANAGEMENT AND PROPERTY SERVICES LIMITED | £1,827,984 |
| 3 | ENVIRONMENTAL WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICES LTD | £1,446,400 |
| 4 | THAMES WATER UTILITIES LIMITED | £1,440,320 |
| 5 | TOTALENERGIES GAS & POWER HOLDINGS UK LTD | £1,350,393 |
| 6 | TRAVELODGE LIMITED | £670,320 |
| 7 | HEMEL HEMPSTEAD BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT LIMITED | £630,710 |
| 8 | GDG INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMMUNICATIONS LIMITED | £516,901 |
| 9 | AON UK LIMITED | £510,000 |
| 10 | METHOD PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONSULTANCY LIMITED | £457,334 |
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.
