Free Guide: Oldham Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council · Metropolitan district · North West
Data covering 2019 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£1.3bn
Transactions
104,548
Suppliers
3,689
Key Takeaways
- £1.3 billion in recorded spend across 104,548 transactions from 2019 to 2026
- 3,689 identified suppliers with an unconcentrated market at HHI 223
- 7 out of 8 published contracts awarded directly, only 1 open tender
£1.3 billion through the books, but how much is visible?
Oldham is a metropolitan borough of around 238,000 people in Greater Manchester, and our data shows it is a serious buyer. Across 104,548 transactions from 2019 to 2026, recorded spend sits at £1.3 billion. That is drawn from 31 source files collected from procontract.due-north.com, Find a Tender, and oldham.gov.uk. We have matched 3,744 suppliers to Companies House records across those transactions. On the contracts side, the picture is thinner. Our dataset holds 96 published contracts worth a combined £807,000, which is clearly a fraction of the actual purchasing volume. The tender pipeline is more telling: 103 tenders with a combined value of £3.6 billion, suggesting large infrastructure and service commissions flow through here. For a borough covering just 54.8 square miles, Oldham punches well above its weight as a procurement body. Being part of GMCA likely amplifies that.
Construction dominates, but the supplier base is wide open
Construction accounts for 22.6% of recorded spend at just under £198 million, spread across 224 identified suppliers. Four of the top ten suppliers sit in this sector, including Willmott Dixon (£51.6 million), Academy Services Oldham (£38.0 million), Tilbury Douglas (£26.8 million), and Oldham BSF (£23.8 million). Health and social work follows at 15.1%, with admin and support services close behind at 13.6%. Education takes 11.0%. But here is what stands out: the market is not concentrated. An HHI of 223 is very low, and the top five suppliers account for only 27.4% of spend. Even the top ten reach just 40.3%. Of the 3,689 identified suppliers across 22 sectors, the largest single recipient, Oldham Retirement Housing Partnership, holds just £68.2 million. Wholesale and retail trade has the highest supplier count at 510 firms, despite representing only 2.2% of spend. That is a lot of small transactions spread thin.
Almost everything is direct award, so where are the open tenders?
This is where it gets interesting. Of the 8 published contracts in our dataset, 7 were direct awards and just 1 went through open tender. The median contract value is £72,146, and 5 of the 8 fall below the procurement threshold. That ratio will catch your eye if you are looking for competitive opportunities. It could mean Oldham routes most of its larger competitive procurement through GMCA or framework agreements that do not show up in borough-level contract notices. The tender pipeline tells a different story, with 103 tenders valued at £3.6 billion in total, so there is clearly procurement activity happening at scale. The gap between 8 published contracts and 104,548 payment transactions suggests much of the buying is done through existing arrangements, call-offs, or frameworks. No consortium activity appears in the data we hold. If you are tracking Oldham's procurement, watching the tender pipeline alongside GMCA activity would give you a fuller picture.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | OLDHAM RETIREMENT HOUSING PARTNERSHIP LIMITED | £68,246,512 |
| 2 | WILLMOTT DIXON CONSTRUCTION LIMITED | £51,613,284 |
| 3 | HOE BRIDGE SCHOOL LIMITED | £43,315,243 |
| 4 | INSPIRAL OLDHAM LIMITED | £39,207,396 |
| 5 | ACADEMY SERVICES (OLDHAM) LIMITED | £37,959,165 |
| 6 | TILBURY DOUGLAS CONSTRUCTION LIMITED | £26,800,559 |
| 7 | OLDHAM BSF LIMITED | £23,834,002 |
| 8 | TURNING POINT (SERVICES) LIMITED | £21,554,633 |
| 9 | EDF ENERGY LIMITED | £20,805,919 |
| 10 | COMMUNITY LIGHTING PARTNERSHIP (OLDHAM) LIMITED | £20,110,951 |
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.
