Free Guide: Walsall Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council · Metropolitan district · West Midlands
Data covering 2010 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£5.9bn
Transactions
1,185,424
Suppliers
7,328
Key Takeaways
- £5.9 billion in recorded spend across 1.19 million transactions since 2010
- 7,328 identified suppliers with an unconcentrated HHI of 213, spreading spend widely
- 63 tenders worth £448 million in the pipeline, mostly through Find a Tender
£5.9 billion over 15 years: what does that tell you?
Walsall is a metropolitan borough of around 287,000 people in the West Midlands Combined Authority area, and it spends like one. Our dataset covers £5.9 billion in recorded spend across 1.19 million transactions, drawn from 207 source files and collected as recently as January 2026. The data runs from late 2010 through to 2026, giving you a long window into how this council buys. That transaction volume, nearly 1.2 million line items, points to a council processing a high volume of smaller payments alongside its larger contracts. We've matched 7,709 suppliers to company records across 22 sectors, and 7,328 unique suppliers appear in the spending data overall. For a borough of 40 square miles, that is a busy procurement operation. If you're scoping the West Midlands, Walsall is one of the bigger metropolitan buyers you will come across in our data.
Where's the money actually going?
Health and social care dominates. Of the spend we've tracked, 27.6% goes to human health and social work, with 886 identified suppliers sharing £748 million. Professional and technical services take 13.9%, and construction accounts for 11.5% with £311 million across 427 suppliers. The top supplier in our records is Starting Point Recruitment, an admin and staffing firm, at £139 million. Tarmac Trading sits close behind at £135 million, almost entirely explaining why mining and quarrying shows up as 5% of total spend. That is one supplier carrying an entire sector classification. The top five suppliers account for 25.6% of recorded spend, and the top ten for 33.2%. With an HHI of 213, this is an unconcentrated market. Spend is spread across thousands of suppliers rather than locked up with a handful. For a council this size, that distribution is worth noting.
How open is the front door?
Contract-level procurement data is thin here. We hold 31 published contracts with no recorded values, so there is little to say about method distribution or contract size profiles from that data alone. The tender pipeline tells a better story. Our records show 63 tenders worth a combined £448 million, sourced through Find a Tender. That is where the forward-looking opportunity sits for anyone watching this council. The gap between the rich transaction-level data and the sparse contract records is common with metropolitan boroughs. Walsall publishes detailed payment data going back to 2010, which is useful for understanding supplier relationships and spend patterns. But if you're looking for structured contract notices with procurement routes and award methods, the published set is limited in what we've captured so far. The tender pipeline is the better signal for upcoming opportunities.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | STARTING POINT RECRUITMENT LIMITED | £139,121,340 |
| 2 | TARMAC TRADING LIMITED | £135,499,117 |
| 3 | WALSALL PUBLIC LIGHTING LIMITED | £64,490,885 |
| 4 | SUSSEX HOUSING AND CARE | £59,695,162 |
| 5 | WEST MIDLANDS MUSIC FUND LTD | £52,080,410 |
| 6 | UPWARD CARE LIMITED | £39,989,404 |
| 7 | SAINT THOMAS LTD | £39,654,812 |
| 8 | HENRY BOOT DEVELOPMENTS LIMITED | £38,203,088 |
| 9 | UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON SCIENCE PARK LIMITED | £36,688,761 |
| 10 | FREETHS LLP | £34,630,820 |
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.
