BidSkim
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Service market

Application development contracts

UK public sector · 312 contracts awarded in the 12 months to 6 October 2026

Covering 600+ buyer portals · 5 years of records · Updated 6 October 2026 · How we count

Contracts awarded
312
Last 12 months
Median contract
£257k
Recorded value
Recorded value
£1.8bn
296 of 303 main-service contracts have a published value
Buyers
151
Suppliers
249

BidSkim assigns contracts to services from the notice text. How services are assigned

What stands out

  • The five suppliers that won the most application development contracts took 10% of them (30 of 312).
  • Contracts awarded per quarter fell 34% from the first half of the period to the second.
  • The median contract, £257k, is 2.3 times the median across it & software contracts (£110k).

Who buys application development

By contracts awarded, the 12 months to 6 October 2026.

  1. 1Ministry of Defence16 contracts
  2. 2UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)14 contracts
  3. 3Met Office13 contracts
  4. 4Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs11 contracts
  5. 5Home Office11 contracts
  6. 6Ministry of Justice9 contracts
  7. 7H M REVENUE & CUSTOMS9 contracts
  8. 8NHS England8 contracts
  9. 9Environment Agency8 contracts
  10. 10Financial Conduct Authority6 contracts

Top application development contractors by contracts won

The 12 months to 6 October 2026.

  1. 1CGI12 contracts
  2. 2Kainos5 contracts
  3. 3Version 15 contracts
  4. 4Arup5 contracts
  5. 5Capgemini4 contracts
  6. 6IBM3 contracts
  7. 7VE3 Global Ltd3 contracts
  8. 8CACI3 contracts
  9. 9PA Consulting3 contracts
  10. 10Ceox Services Ltd3 contracts

Latest and largest awards

Each links to the official notice.

Latest

Largest

Contracts awarded by quarter

68Q4 2025*102Q1 202675Q2 202667Q3 20260Q4 2026*
* part quarter

Where the contracts were awarded

England 269 · Scotland 28 · Wales 10 · Northern Ireland 5

London78South West30North West26Scotland25Wales10East of England9South East9North East8Yorkshire and The Humber8West Midlands8East Midlands7Northern Ireland5UK-wide or not stated89

What is included

Custom design, build, integration and ongoing support of a specified application, tool, portal or data system that is not an off-the-shelf product, including developer resource, and application maintenance and support contracts for existing bespoke code or for a mixed estate of applications where no single product is named.

  • Bespoke business applications and data management systems
  • Custom web platforms and portals (community, learning, referral)
  • Integrations, adapters and APIs between systems
  • Research and analytical tools (R Shiny apps, compliance checkers, model code support)
  • Backend and cloud-native engineering
  • Developer resource for bespoke code
  • Application support, DevOps and DevSecOps for bespoke systems
  • Prototype builds from innovation challenges

What is not included

  • Multidisciplinary discovery-to-live service delivery -> it.dev.digital-service-delivery
  • Builds on low-code or SaaS application platforms -> it.dev.low-code-platform-development
  • Websites and CMS -> it.dev.websites-and-cms
  • Mobile apps -> it.dev.mobile-app-development
  • Interactive exhibits and XR -> it.dev.interactive-and-immersive-experiences
  • Data platforms and pipelines -> it.data.data-platforms-and-engineering
  • Support of one named off-the-shelf product -> that product's service
  • Individual contractors placed in the buyer's own teams -> it.advice.it-contractors-specialist-resource
  • Development work whose subject is not stated -> it.dev.unspecified-development

Often bought by the same buyers