Free Guide: Leicester Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Leicester City Council · Unitary authority · East Midlands
Data covering 2015 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£3.4bn
Transactions
595,574
Suppliers
5,365
Key Takeaways
- £3.4 billion in recorded spend across nearly 596,000 transactions since 2015
- 5,365 identified suppliers with an unconcentrated HHI of 151, meaning spend is widely spread
- 828 tenders worth £1.76 billion published, with open competition the most common route
£3.4 billion over a decade: how big a buyer is Leicester?
Leicester is a major unitary authority serving 354,000 people in just 28.2 square miles, and the spending data matches that density. Our dataset covers £3.4 billion in recorded spend across 595,574 transactions, drawn from 34 source files spanning 2015 to 2026. That is a deep and long-running set of records. On top of the transaction-level data, we've tracked 166 published contracts worth a combined £13.5 million and 828 tenders valued at £1.76 billion. The tender pipeline is where the real scale sits. If you're looking at Leicester, the volume of opportunities coming through formal tender notices dwarfs the published contract register. We've matched 5,588 supplier records to Companies House entries, giving you a solid base to work from when researching incumbents and competitors across the council's buying activity.
Health and construction dominate, but no single supplier owns this market
Health and social work takes the biggest share of matched spend at 27.1%, with £583 million flowing to 542 identified suppliers. Construction follows at 17.0%. Two BSF (Building Schools for the Future) special purpose vehicles, Leicester BSF Company 1 and 2, account for a combined £138 million between them, which tells you something about how that programme shaped the council's construction spending. Biffa tops the overall supplier list at £154 million, mostly through waste services. Leicestershire County Care sits second at £128 million. But here is the thing: the HHI score is just 151, and the top five suppliers account for only 23.2% of recorded spend. That is unusually spread out. Even the top ten only reach 30.1%. For a city of this size, the money is distributed across a wide supplier base rather than locked up with a handful of incumbents.
Open tenders lead, but direct awards still make up over a third
Of the 24 contracts where we have procurement method data, 14 went through open tender and 9 were direct awards. That means roughly 37% bypassed competition entirely, at least in this subset. One contract used a limited procedure. The median contract value sits at £305,000, with 15 contracts above the procurement threshold and 9 below it. Leicester is also a member of Efficiency East Midlands (EEM), a consortium open to all public sector bodies, which may account for some procurement routes not captured in the direct contract data. The tender pipeline paints a broader picture: 828 published tenders worth £1.76 billion suggest the council runs a busy and active procurement operation. The ratio of direct awards to open tenders in the contract data is worth watching, but with only 24 contracts in that sample, it is a small window into a much larger operation.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BIFFA WASTE SERVICES LIMITED | £153,759,681 |
| 2 | LEICESTERSHIRE COUNTY CARE LIMITED | £127,513,215 |
| 3 | SPECIALIST RECRUITMENT SERVICES LIMITED | £78,820,486 |
| 4 | LEICESTER BSF COMPANY 2 LIMITED | £70,075,685 |
| 5 | LEICESTER BSF COMPANY 1 LIMITED | £68,147,565 |
| 6 | PRIME LIFE LIMITED | £34,505,829 |
| 7 | TURNING POINT (SERVICES) LIMITED | £33,033,173 |
| 8 | WILLMOTT DIXON CONSTRUCTION LIMITED | £28,228,139 |
| 9 | PORTAKABIN LIMITED | £26,675,831 |
| 10 | LEICESTER DISTRICT ENERGY COMPANY LIMITED | £26,668,782 |
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.
