Software licensing contracts
UK public sector · 235 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
- 235
- Last 12 months
- Median contract
- £89k
- Recorded value
- Recorded value
- £288m
- 222 of 233 main-service contracts have a published value
- Buyers
- 163
- Suppliers
- 49
95 software licensing contracts ending in the next 12 months
See which ones
BidSkim assigns contracts to services from the notice text. How services are assigned
What stands out
- The five suppliers that won the most software licensing contracts took 46% of them (107 of 235).
- Contracts awarded per quarter fell 41% from the first half of the period to the second.
- The median contract, £89k, is 19% below the median across it & software contracts (£110k).
Who buys software licensing
By contracts awarded, the 12 months to 6 October 2026.
- 1Highways England6 contracts£385k
- 2H M REVENUE & CUSTOMS5 contracts£2.2m
- 3Met Office5 contracts£440k
- 4UK Shared Business Services (UK SBS)4 contracts£945k
- 5Digital Health and Care Wales4 contracts£350k
- 6Police and Crime Commissioner for Durham4 contracts£207k
- 7Office for National Statistics4 contracts£199k
- 8British Transport Police3 contracts£709k
- 9Department for Business and Trade3 contracts£530k
- 10NHS Business Services Authority3 contracts£329k
Top software licensing contractors by contracts won
The 12 months to 6 October 2026.
- 1Bytes Software Services36 contracts£58.2m
- 2Phoenix Software24 contracts£6.7m
- 3Oracle19 contracts£14.7m
- 4CDW14 contracts£41.1m
- 5Jisc14 contracts£7.1m
- 6Softcat12 contracts£654k
- 7BlueLight Commercial11 contracts£1.7m
- 8Insight11 contracts£583k
- 9Academia9 contracts£701k
- 10Omniplex Learning9 contracts£289k
Latest and largest awards
Each links to the official notice.
Latest
Student Loans Company to Omniplex Learning · Awarded 5 October 2026
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council to Oracle · Awarded 2 October 2026
BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL to Oracle · Awarded 30 September 2026
North Lincolnshire Council to Phoenix Software · Awarded 17 September 2026
Coventry City Council to Phoenix Software · Awarded 10 September 2026
London Borough of Havering to Bytes Software Services · Awarded 9 September 2026
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council to Bytes Software Services · Awarded 31 August 2026
University of Edinburgh to supplier not published · Awarded 31 August 2026
Office for National Statistics to CDW · Awarded 28 August 2026
York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority acting on behalf of itself and the Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police to Insight · Awarded 28 August 2026
Largest
Post Office Limited to Specialist Computer Centres (SCC) · Awarded 27 April 2026
Sanctuary Housing Association to Bytes Software Services · Awarded 11 January 2026
Jisc to CDW · Awarded 16 July 2026
BlueLight Commercial to CDW · Awarded 11 March 2026
Network Rail Infrastructure Limited to Oracle · Awarded 12 May 2026
Contracts awarded by quarter
Where the contracts were awarded
England 204 · Wales 18 · Scotland 13
What is included
Buying and renewing software licences and vendor support, through resellers or direct from vendors such as Adobe, Oracle and IBM, when no more specific software service fits.
- Adobe ETLA and Creative Cloud licences
- Adobe Acrobat licences
- COTS software supply frameworks and DPS lots
- Oracle and IBM licence purchases, renewals and annual support where no product line is named
- Enterprise software licence agreements bought direct from the vendor
What is not included
- Microsoft licences -> it.ent.microsoft-licensing
- Vendor-specific business applications (finance, HR, CRM) -> their own services in this family
- Unspecified licence renewals -> it.ent.other-enterprise-software