Free Guide: Hertfordshire Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Hertfordshire County Council · County · East of England
Data covering 2017 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£5.0bn
Transactions
744,139
Suppliers
6,830
Key Takeaways
- £5 billion in recorded spend across 744,139 transactions from 2017 to 2026
- 6,830 identified suppliers with an unconcentrated market at HHI 245
- Health and social work accounts for 31% of matched supplier spend
A £5 billion buying machine serving 1.2 million people
Hertfordshire County Council is one of the larger county councils in England, covering 634.4 square miles in the East of England with a population just under 1.2 million. And the spending data matches that scale. Our dataset covers £5 billion in recorded spend across 744,139 transactions, drawn from 71 source files collected from hertfordshire.gov.uk and Find a Tender. That data spans 2017 to 2026, giving you a decent window into how this council spends. We've matched 7,225 suppliers against Companies House records, with 6,830 unique suppliers identified in the spend data. On the contracts side, our spending data references 198 contracts, though only one formal contract award notice appears in the procurement records, worth £200,000 via a selective process. We also hold 221 tenders with a stated value of £2.9 billion. The transaction-level spend data provides the deepest coverage here.
Who's getting the biggest share of nearly £5 billion?
Ringway Infrastructure Services dominates what we can see, with £319 million in recorded spend, more than six times the next supplier. That's a highways maintenance contractor, and construction overall accounts for 17% of matched spend. But the real heavyweight sector is health and social care at 31%, pulling in £691 million across 904 identified suppliers. Abbots Care (£51 million) and Care by Us (£45 million) sit second and third. Education takes 11.2% with £251 million, and professional services adds another 6.9%. Despite Ringway's large position at the top, the market is unconcentrated. An HHI of 245 tells you that spend is widely distributed. The top five suppliers account for 21.8% of recorded spend, and the top ten for 28.2%. In health and social care specifically, we've identified 904 suppliers in that sector alone, with spend spread across providers like Abbots Care, Care by Us, and CareTech Community Services.
Where are the formal tenders?
This is where Hertfordshire gets interesting. Our procurement data holds just one published contract award notice, awarded through a selective process at £200,000. But the tender pipeline tells a different story: 221 tenders worth £2.9 billion. The bulk of the procurement activity we can see sits in that tender data rather than in published contract award notices. The median contract value of £200,000 reflects that single published contract. What the transaction data shows more reliably is £5 billion flowing through 6,830 identified suppliers across 22 tracked sectors. Transport and storage alone accounts for £120 million, with Lucketts of Watford pulling £26 million of that. Waste management draws £86 million through 64 suppliers, with FCC Recycling (£33 million) and Viridor Oxfordshire (£32 million) taking the largest shares. The tender records contain far more procurement activity than the contract award data.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | RINGWAY INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES LIMITED | £319,253,829 |
| 2 | ABBOTS CARE LIMITED | £51,363,287 |
| 3 | CARE BY US LTD | £44,624,221 |
| 4 | SERCO LIMITED | £37,636,016 |
| 5 | FCC RECYCLING (UK) LIMITED | £33,154,322 |
| 6 | WSP UK LIMITED | £32,635,839 |
| 7 | VIRIDOR OXFORDSHIRE LIMITED | £31,652,454 |
| 8 | HERTFORDSHIRE BUILDING COMPANY LIMITED | £28,112,279 |
| 9 | LUCKETTS OF WATFORD LIMITED | £26,159,807 |
| 10 | CARETECH COMMUNITY SERVICES LIMITED | £25,693,366 |
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.
