Free Guide: Harlow Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Harlow District Council · Non-metropolitan district · East of England
Data covering 2019 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£298.8m
Transactions
23,892
Suppliers
563
Key Takeaways
- £298.8 million in recorded spend across 23,892 transactions since 2019
- 67.7% of matched spend goes to just five suppliers, with HTS dominating
- 7 tenders worth £59.5 million total, heavily weighted toward construction
How big a buyer is Harlow?
Bigger than you might expect for a district council covering just 12 square miles and 87,000 residents. Our data tracks £298.8 million in recorded spend across 23,892 transactions, drawn from 15 source files spanning 2019 to 2026. That works out to roughly £43 million a year on average, which is a serious volume of purchasing for a non-metropolitan district in Essex. We've matched 889 suppliers from those records, with 563 unique identified suppliers appearing across the dataset. Harlow also sits within the Procure Plus Holdings framework, which is open to all public sector bodies. On the tenders side, we hold 7 published tenders with a combined value of £59.5 million. The spending data comes from both Harlow's own transparency pages and Find a Tender notices, giving a reasonable window into how this council operates as a buyer.
One supplier towers over the rest
HTS (Property and Environment) Limited dominates the picture. Of the 563 identified suppliers in our dataset, HTS accounts for £131.6 million, which is 44% of all matched spend on its own. That single relationship shapes the entire supplier profile here. Browne Jacobson LLP sits second at £44.2 million, followed by Hill Partnerships at £15.3 million, Veolia at £13.2 million, and Lamya Construction at £10.1 million. Between them, the top five take 67.7% of recorded spend, and the top ten account for 77%. An HHI of 2,004 puts this in moderately concentrated territory, though it's right at the boundary. Construction firms are well represented across the top ten, with four of them appearing there. By sector, administrative and support services leads at 44.4% of spend (largely driven by HTS), construction takes 20.8%, and professional services sits at 5%. If you're not already connected to the property and environment services space here, the data suggests a steep hill to climb.
What does the tender pipeline actually look like?
Harlow has no published contract award notices in our dataset, so procurement method breakdowns are not available. What we do have is 7 tenders valued at a combined £59.5 million. That average tender value of around £8.5 million tells you these are chunky opportunities when they do appear, not small-lot purchases. The council's spend is heavily concentrated in a few long-standing supplier relationships, which is consistent with a council that relies on established contractors and frameworks rather than frequent open competition. Membership of Procure Plus Holdings reinforces that pattern, giving Harlow access to pre-vetted suppliers for construction and property services without running full procurement exercises each time. For bid managers, the question becomes how often new opportunities surface here, and whether those 7 tenders represent a typical flow or a quiet patch. Based on what we can see, Harlow buys big but buys infrequently through open channels.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HTS (PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENT) LIMITED | £131,612,409 |
| 2 | BROWNE JACOBSON LLP | £44,169,900 |
| 3 | HILL PARTNERSHIPS LIMITED | £15,279,469 |
| 4 | VEOLIA ES (UK) LIMITED | £13,158,438 |
| 5 | LAMYA CONSTRUCTION LIMITED | £10,117,191 |
| 6 | CHAS BERGER LIMITED | £9,145,906 |
| 7 | MCBAINS LTD | £6,855,705 |
| 8 | ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER & CO. | £6,035,253 |
| 9 | MORGAN SINDALL CONSTRUCTION & INFRASTRUCTURE LTD | £3,599,020 |
| 10 | NICKOLDS HMO MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE LTD | £3,538,031 |
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.
