Free Guide: Wirral Spending & Supplier Profile
A free spending & supplier guide for Wirral Borough Council · Metropolitan district · North West
Data covering 2020 to 2026
Recorded Spend
£1.3bn
Transactions
223,354
Suppliers
2,830
Key Takeaways
- £1.3 billion in recorded spend across 223,354 transactions since 2022
- 40% of matched spend goes to health and social care suppliers
- 2,830 identified suppliers but the top 5 account for just 22% of spend
How big a buyer is Wirral?
Wirral is a metropolitan district of 324,000 people on Merseyside, and our data shows it spends accordingly. Across 223,354 transactions, we've tracked £1.3 billion in recorded spend, with payment data running from April 2022 and contract records stretching back to 2020. That puts it firmly in large-buyer territory for a met borough. The contract pipeline adds useful context: 85 published contracts worth a combined £104 million, plus 155 tenders with a total value topping £1.27 billion. That tender figure is eye-catching. It suggests Wirral runs some very large procurements, likely in construction or social care given the sector mix. The median contract value sits at around £139,000, so while the headline numbers are big, plenty of the individual opportunities are mid-range and accessible to smaller firms. If you're scanning for volume, Wirral delivers it.
Health and social care dominates, but who else gets paid?
Of the 2,830 suppliers we've identified, health and social care providers take the largest share by far, pulling in 40.4% of matched spend across 390 suppliers. Professional Carers (Wirral) Ltd tops the table at £77 million, followed by Autism Together at £24.5 million and Change, Grow, Live at £22.8 million. Three of the top six suppliers sit in that sector. Construction comes second at 9.5% of spend, with Kiely Bros and VolkerStevin both in the top ten. Education takes 7.5%, and real estate activities account for 6.9%, boosted by Wirral Schools Services at £49.3 million. But here's what matters for competition: the HHI score is just 165, which is very low. And the top five suppliers account for only 22.1% of recorded spend. This is a spread-out market based on what we can see, not one locked up by a handful of incumbents.
Are contracts actually going to open competition?
Of the 16 contracts where we have procurement method data, 9 went through open tender. That's a solid majority. Only 2 were direct awards, and 1 was a limited procedure, with 4 marked as unknown. So from what we can see in the published contract data, Wirral leans toward competitive procurement. The above-threshold and below-threshold split is even at 8 each, which means opportunities come in a range of sizes. Worth noting that the contract count here (16 with method data) is a fraction of the 85 total contracts and 155 tenders in our dataset, so the full picture may look different. Our data is drawn from 48 source files across three domains including Wirral's own site, Find a Tender, and their ProContract portal. With 2,885 matched suppliers in the dataset, there's a broad base to explore. The open tender rate looks encouraging for new entrants, though the sample is small.
| # | Supplier | Spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PROFESSIONAL CARERS (WIRRAL) LTD | £77,000,000 |
| 2 | WIRRAL SCHOOLS SERVICES LIMITED | £49,274,579 |
| 3 | BIFFA WASTE SERVICES LIMITED | £36,493,504 |
| 4 | AUTISM TOGETHER | £24,488,543 |
| 5 | MATRIX SCM LIMITED | £22,873,213 |
| 6 | CHANGE, GROW, LIVE SERVICES LIMITED | £22,761,531 |
| 7 | KIELY BROS. LIMITED | £20,507,241 |
| 8 | EDF ENERGY LIMITED | £19,977,716 |
| 9 | VOLKERSTEVIN LIMITED | £15,871,144 |
| 10 | MEDEQUIP ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY LIMITED | £15,202,959 |
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.
