Free Guide: Southend-on-Sea Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Southend-on-Sea Borough Council · Unitary authority · East of England
Data covering 2020 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£761.7m
Transactions
97,929
Suppliers
1,944
Key Takeaways
- £762 million in recorded spend across nearly 98,000 transactions since 2020
- 33.5% of matched spend goes to health and social care suppliers
- 2,066 identified suppliers with an unconcentrated HHI of 127
How big a buyer is Southend-on-Sea?
For a unitary authority covering just 16.2 square miles and around 183,000 people, Southend-on-Sea moves a lot of money. Our data shows £762 million in recorded spend across nearly 98,000 transactions from 2020 to 2026, drawn from 52 source files. That works out at roughly £127 million a year, which is a busy payments ledger for a council this size. On the contracts side, we hold 91 published contracts worth a combined £1.8 million, while 153 tenders account for £210 million in advertised value. The tender pipeline tells you more about upcoming opportunity size than the contracts dataset does here. Sourcing comes from both Find a Tender and the council's own site, so you are seeing both national-level procurements and locally published data. If you are scoping Southend as a target, the transaction volume alone suggests an active and engaged procurement function.
Health and social care dominates, but the field is wide open
One in every three pounds we've tracked goes to health and social work suppliers. Across 301 identified firms in that sector, recorded spend hits £71.2 million, or 33.5% of the matched total. Southend Care Ltd sits at the top of the supplier table with £13.3 million, followed by DHH Client Account Ltd at £8.6 million. But this is not a concentrated market. The HHI score is just 127, which is very low. The top five suppliers account for only 18.2% of matched spend, and the top ten for 28.1%. With 2,066 matched suppliers across 22 sectors, spending is spread widely. Behind health, admin and support services take 10.3%, education 8.5%, and wholesale and retail 5.8%. Construction firms pulled in £11.4 million from 87 suppliers. For a council of this size, that breadth of supplier base is striking. Competition looks genuinely open based on what we can see.
What does the procurement route actually look like?
The formal contract data covers two published procurements, one awarded through an open procedure and one through a limited route, with a median contract value of around £899,000. The real story is in the tender pipeline. With 153 tenders worth £210 million on record, Southend is actively advertising opportunities. That volume suggests the council regularly goes to market rather than relying purely on frameworks or direct extensions. The split between above-threshold and below-threshold contracts is even at one of each. What you can take from this is that the council publishes on both Find a Tender and its own website, giving you two channels to monitor. The gap between tender volume and formal contract records is common across councils and simply reflects how different datasets get published.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SOUTHEND CARE LTD | £13,278,757 |
| 2 | DHH CLIENT ACCOUNT LTD | £8,589,686 |
| 3 | ESSEX COUNTY CARS LTD | £6,501,689 |
| 4 | SUEZ RECYCLING AND RECOVERY UK LTD | £5,393,958 |
| 5 | GRETTON PRIMARY SCHOOL | £4,814,281 |
| 6 | EDF ENERGY LIMITED | £4,724,225 |
| 7 | THE FORWARD TRUST | £4,612,085 |
| 8 | MARLBOROUGH HIGHWAYS LIMITED | £4,247,152 |
| 9 | EUROVIA INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITED | £4,174,187 |
| 10 | AGRADE COMMUNITY CARE SERVICES LIMITED | £3,417,489 |
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.
