Free Guide: Dudley Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council · Metropolitan district · West Midlands
Data covering 2011 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£3.8bn
Transactions
718,594
Suppliers
9,335
Key Takeaways
- £3.8 billion in recorded spend across over 718,000 transactions since 2011
- 9,335 identified suppliers spread across 22 sectors with an unconcentrated HHI of 100
- 26.3% of matched spend goes to health and social work suppliers
How big a buyer is Dudley?
Dudley is a metropolitan borough of 322,000 people in the West Midlands Combined Authority, and our data shows it is a serious buyer. Across 230 source files drawn from dudley.gov.uk and Find a Tender, we've tracked £3.8 billion in recorded spend spanning 2011 to 2026. That covers over 718,000 individual transactions. The contract register is smaller, with 84 published contracts worth a combined £117 million, while 138 tenders have been posted with a total value of £682 million. The gap between tender value and contract value is worth noting. It suggests either that many tendered opportunities haven't yet converted to published contracts, or that Dudley's contract register captures only a portion of what goes through formal procurement. For a met borough serving 37.8 square miles of the Black Country, the transaction volume alone tells you this is an active, high-frequency buyer. That flow of spending is steady and long-running.
Where does the money actually go?
Health and social work takes the largest share of matched spend at 26.3%, or £572 million across 853 identified suppliers. Construction follows at 21.2% (£460 million, 599 suppliers), then administrative and support services at 12.8%. The top supplier in our data is UI Social Infrastructure Limited, a construction firm, with £115 million in recorded spend. Matrix SCM and Centro PLC, both in admin services, sit at second and third with £74 million and £69 million respectively. Dudley Waste Services follows at £60 million, and Inshore Support Limited rounds out the top five with £48 million in health and social care. But here's the thing: concentration is very low. The HHI is just 100, which is about as unconcentrated as you'll find. The top five suppliers account for only 16.8% of total spend, and the top ten for 25.8%. With 9,335 identified suppliers across 22 sectors, the spend is spread widely.
Only three published contracts, so what's going on?
Dudley's procurement data is thin on published contract notices. We've tracked just three above-threshold contracts, with a median value of £1.5 million. Of those, two were open tenders and one was a direct award. That's too small a sample to draw firm conclusions about procurement style. The 138 tenders worth £682 million tell a different story about pipeline activity, but the conversion to published contracts in our records is minimal. If you're looking at Dudley's formal procurement routes, the tender feed from Find a Tender is where you'll find the action. The transaction data, by contrast, is deep: over 718,000 payment records from council-published files give a granular picture of who gets paid and how often. For bid managers tracking this council, the payment data may be more useful than the contract register for understanding spending patterns and identifying recurring supplier relationships.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UI SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITED | £115,000,000 |
| 2 | MATRIX SCM LIMITED | £74,132,241 |
| 3 | CENTRO PLC | £68,882,152 |
| 4 | DUDLEY WASTE SERVICES LIMITED | £59,576,765 |
| 5 | INSHORE SUPPORT LIMITED | £48,047,776 |
| 6 | EQUANS REGENERATION (FHM) LIMITED | £45,365,397 |
| 7 | JOHN A. BATES (CONTRACTORS) LIMITED | £44,925,017 |
| 8 | NEWMOUNT LTD | £41,219,837 |
| 9 | RM EDUCATION LTD | £36,186,248 |
| 10 | MIDLAND HEART LIMITED | £26,656,232 |
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.
