Media buying contracts

• The five suppliers that won the most media buying contracts took 39% of them (55 of 143).
• The median contract, £173k, is 2.5 times the median across marketing & creative contracts (£69k).
• Hampshire County Council awarded 18% of the media buying contracts (26 of 143).

1. 1Hampshire County Council26 contracts£136k
2. 2Swansea University4 contracts£860k
3. 3Public Health Scotland4 contracts£274k
4. 4NHS Blood and Transplant3 contracts£5.8m
5. 5University of Kent3 contracts£2.7m
6. 6University of East Anglia3 contracts£286k
7. 7H M REVENUE & CUSTOMS2 contracts£120m
8. 8Department for Work and Pensions2 contracts£96.0m
9. 9Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC)2 contracts£25.6m
10. 10Sport England2 contracts£24.7m

1. 1Wavemaker26 contracts£881m
2. 2Bauer Media Outdoor UK Limited10 contracts£73k
3. 3Manning Gottlieb OMD9 contracts£7.8m
4. 4Hybrid News Limited5 contracts£6.3m
5. 5Global Media & Entertainment5 contracts£593k
6. 6SMRS4 contracts£2.8m
7. 7GLOBAL RADIO LIMITED4 contracts£9k
8. 8WPP 6503 contracts£307m
9. 9Anderson Spratt Group (ASG)3 contracts£750k
10. 10The Student Room3 contracts£480k

Latest

• Digital & Media Advertising (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £103k

  New College Durham to Steve Davidson Advertising · Awarded 1 October 2026

• Third Party Partnerships (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £176k

  University of East Anglia to Hybrid News Limited · Awarded 28 September 2026

• Third Party Partnerships: UPP on TheStudentRoom.com and TheUniGuide.com (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £30k

  University of East Anglia to STUDENT ROOM GROUP LIMITED · Awarded 24 September 2026

• Award of PHS00726 Chat Sign Protect Secondary School 2627 (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £54k

  Public Health Scotland to Spiritmedia Scotland · Awarded 18 September 2026

• Media Partnership (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £500k

  1 to Global Media & Entertainment and Guardian News & Media · Awarded 14 September 2026

• Global Media & Marketing Services Ecosystem (Media, Performance & Creative Services) (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £150m

  British Council to Omnicom Media Group · Awarded 11 September 2026

• GLA - YouTube Credit Line (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £390k

  Greater London Authority to Google UK Limited · Awarded 8 September 2026

• Award of PHS00926 Media - Adult Flu 2627 (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £80k

  Public Health Scotland to The Media Shop Scotland Ltd · Awarded 28 August 2026

• Provision of Media Advertising Services (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £181k

  South Ayrshire Council to Advertisingworks Scotland Ltd · Awarded 17 August 2026

• Provision of Media Buying (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £8.0m

  Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to Wavemaker · Awarded 14 August 2026

Largest

• Cabinet Office Media Planning and Buying (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £350m

  Cabinet Office to Wavemaker · Awarded 19 May 2026

• Media Buying Call off 2026 (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £300m

  Department for Education to WPP 650 · Awarded 21 May 2026

• Media Buying Services (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £120m

  H M REVENUE & CUSTOMS to Wavemaker · Awarded 5 May 2026

• Media Buying & Planning Services (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £95.0m

  Department for Work and Pensions to Wavemaker · Awarded 1 January 2026

• Media Strategy, Planning and Buying (official notice, opens in a new tab)

  £80.0m

  Department for Business and Trade to Wavemaker · Awarded 5 June 2026

Planning and buying paid advertising space and airtime for the buyer's campaigns, through a media agency across channels or direct from media owners for one channel: TV, radio and digital audio, press and advertorial, out-of-home, cinema, and digital display and programmatic.

• Media strategy and planning
• Media buying and strategic media activation
• Multi-channel paid media for public information, recruitment, student and destination campaigns
• Broadcast (TV and radio) planning and buying lots
• Media buying agency frameworks and rosters
• Account management of the media buy
• Billboard and adshel campaigns
• 6-sheet and station poster campaigns
• Out-of-home planning and buying lots
• Radio airtime for public information and public health campaigns
• DAX digital audio advertising
• Distribution of radio filler adverts to commercial stations
• Sponsored article and advertorial space
• Press partnership media buying
• Annual advertising in printed and online guides
• Digital advertising frameworks
• Display and programmatic campaigns
• Paid placements and profiles on student and university comparison sites
• Digital advertising packages from broadcaster portfolios
• Digital advertising planning and buying lots

• Job adverts and recruitment advertising agency services (another industry: rec.attract.recruitment-advertising-agency)
• Statutory and public notices (mkt.media.statutory-public-notices)
• Granting a media owner the right to sell advertising on the buyer's sites (mkt.media.advertising-concessions)
• Buying one sponsorship package of another organisation's event (mkt.media.advertising-unspecified)
• Paid search and paid social campaign management (mkt.digital.digital-marketing-and-seo)
• Campaign creative and running the campaign (mkt.camp.creative-agency-integrated-campaigns)
• Producing the advert (mkt.video.video-production, mkt.video.audio-podcast-and-voiceover)
• Printing posters and billboard skins (mkt.print.large-format-display-print)
• Independent audit and benchmarking of the media buy (mkt.media.media-auditing)
• Websites (another industry: it.dev.websites-and-cms)
• Campaign evaluation research (another industry: csl.research.programme-evaluation)

• Statistical reporting
• Executive education