Free Guide: Liverpool Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Liverpool City Council · Metropolitan district · North West
Data covering 2015 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£2.8bn
Transactions
672,590
Suppliers
3,846
Key Takeaways
- £2.8 billion in recorded spend across 672,590 transactions since 2015
- 3,846 identified suppliers with an unconcentrated HHI of 194
- 153 tenders worth £1.85 billion are tracked in the pipeline
£2.8 billion and counting: how big is Liverpool as a buyer?
Liverpool is a major metropolitan buyer. Our data covers £2.8 billion in recorded spend across 672,590 transactions, drawn from 58 source files spanning 2015 to 2026. That's a large, active procurement operation serving a city of just over 500,000 people in 43.2 square miles. The spending records we hold include 114 published contracts worth a combined £4.4 million, plus 153 tenders valued at £1.85 billion. That gap between contract value and tender value is worth noting. It suggests that much of Liverpool's higher-value procurement flows through tender processes rather than smaller published contracts. The council is a member of Procure Plus Holdings, a purchasing consortium open to all public sector bodies, which may channel some of its buying power. For anyone tracking Liverpool, the sheer volume of transactions means there is a lot of activity to monitor across a wide range of services.
Who's getting paid, and how spread out is it?
Liverpool's supplier base is broad. Of the 3,846 identified suppliers in our dataset, the top five account for 23.2% of recorded spend, and the top ten for 32.3%. The HHI sits at just 194, which is very low, pointing to a widely distributed spend profile. The biggest recipient we've tracked is Liverpool Streetscene Services Limited at £209 million, a council-linked entity handling administrative and support services. Liverpool Schools Services follows at £90 million. Both look like in-house or arms-length operations. After those two, the mix shifts to external contractors: Morgan Sindall (£79 million), Matrix SCM (£64 million), and Community Integrated Care (£44 million). Construction is well represented, with three firms in the top ten pulling in a combined £112 million. Health and social work dominates by sector at 27.2% of matched spend across 538 suppliers, followed by administrative services at 20.6%. If you're in construction or care, this is a busy market.
Open tenders or closed doors?
The contract data we hold for Liverpool is limited in volume, with just five contracts recorded in our procurement dataset. Of those, four went through open tender and one was a direct award. The median contract value sits at £450,724. With only five data points, it is hard to draw firm conclusions about Liverpool's procurement habits from the contract records alone. But the tender pipeline tells a bigger story: 153 tenders worth £1.85 billion suggest that competitive procurement is the dominant route for larger-value work. Four of the five recorded contracts sit above the procurement threshold, so below-threshold buying barely features in the published data. The question for bid managers is whether Liverpool's openness on tenders translates to genuinely competitive processes, or whether incumbency and established relationships play a bigger role than the formal route suggests. The spending data, with its heavy concentration in council-linked entities at the top, leaves that question open.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | LIVERPOOL STREETSCENE SERVICES LIMITED | £209,285,820 |
| 2 | LIVERPOOL SCHOOLS SERVICES LIMITED | £89,905,204 |
| 3 | MORGAN SINDALL LIMITED | £79,317,340 |
| 4 | MATRIX SCM LIMITED | £63,691,122 |
| 5 | COMMUNITY INTEGRATED CARE | £44,204,057 |
| 6 | AUTISM INITIATIVES (UK) | £42,437,939 |
| 7 | HUYTON ASPHALT CIVILS LTD | £40,852,937 |
| 8 | WILLMOTT DIXON CONSTRUCTION LIMITED | £37,512,823 |
| 9 | EDF ENERGY CUSTOMERS LIMITED | £35,749,611 |
| 10 | JOHN GRAY CONSTRUCTION LTD | £33,351,811 |
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.
