UK Public Sector AI Procurement Tracker

Tussell's AI Procurement Tracker is the market's go-to benchmark for measuring the scale of AI procurement across the UK public sector. It is updated monthly and draws on data from Tussell's market intelligence platform.

Navigate through the Tracker using the contents table below.

Contents:

• Introduction
• The AI Procurement Tracker
  • August 2026 Update: key takeaways
  • Chart 1: Value & volume of AI contracts over time
  • Chart 2: Top AI buyers
  • Chart 3: Top AI suppliers
  • Chart 4: AI procurement by supplier location
  • Chart 5: AI contracts by type
  • Chart 6: AI contracts by procurement framework

• What is the data telling us?
• What is the methodology?
• AI Tracker - in the media

Last updated: 11th August 2026

NB: On November 4th, Sky News' Sam Coates used data from this Tracker to report on the government's £3.3bn worth of awarded AI contracts. Watch his full explainer here.

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is capturing the world’s imagination, and that includes the UK public sector.

Public bodies have been purchasing AI-based solutions for well over a decade, but recent breakthroughs - specifically in Generative AI since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 - have spurred a fresh wave of interest in how government could benefit from this rapidly-evolving technology.

Whilst loud voices debate the future of AI, we at Tussell wanted to cut through the noise and look at the facts.

We’ve set out to answer a simple question: How much has the government spent on procuring AI so far, and what is it buying?

Introducing: Tussell's AI Procurement Tracker.

Inspired by an earlier tracker we produced to measure Covid-related procurement contracts, this new Tracker draws on data from our own market intelligence platform to map the landscape of AI adoption across government.

Our AI Procurement Tracker is your go-to source of fact-checked data to understand which AI capabilities the government is buying, who from and at what cost.

This will be essential reading if:

1. Your company supplies tech to government and you want to follow the latest market trends, or

2. You work in a public body and want to know how your peers are
   adapting to rapid change, or

3. You are a journalist, commentator or policy advisor in search of

   hard facts to back up your research.

The AI Procurement Tracker

Between 01/01/2018 and the 03/08/2026:

The UK public sector awarded

2,129 AI contracts

In total, they were worth

£5 billion

August 2026 Update: key takeaways

2026 is already the biggest year on record for AI-related public procurement.

With more than a quarter of the year still to go, the total value of AI-related contract awards has surpassed that of any previous year. The number of contracts awarded is also on track to exceed the record set in 2025.

One notable contract awarded since our June update is a £456 million Cabinet Office contract awarded to KPMG and EY to establish a new National School of Government and Public Service. The contract covers civil service training across a range of areas, including digital and AI training.

That contract has also helped narrow the gap between UK and US suppliers. In June, US-based firms were ahead by just under £1 billion in awarded contract value. By August 2026, that lead had fallen to just over £80 million.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham's push to use public procurement to support British suppliers and jobs could tilt the balance further towards domestic AI providers.

Is your business struggling to keep on top of the surge in new public sector AI opportunities? Get in touch with the team to see how we can help.

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Chart 1: Value and volume of awarded contracts, since 2018

This chart shows a clear trajectory in the volume and value of AI-related contracts awarded since 2018. 

2026 has seen the highest value of AI-related contract awards on record.

The spike in contract value in 2021 was caused a £1 billion 'Supercomputing 2020+' contract, awarded by the Met Office to Microsoft.

• 2018: £69 million (31 contracts)

• 2019: £25 million (66 contracts)

• 2020: £75 million (85 contracts)

• 2021: £1.15 billion (156 contracts)

• 2022: £124 million (221 contracts)

• 2023: £424 million (258 contracts)

• 2024: £582 million (338 contracts)

• 2025: £1.18 billion (521 contracts)

• 2026 (so far): £1.41 billion (453 contracts)

👉  To download a sample of the underlying data, click here.

Chart 2: Largest buyers of AI by contract value, since 2018 

Tussell's analysis indicates that, by value of awarded AI contracts, the UK public sector's top AI buyers includes Met Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, and NHS England.

It should be noted that a significant portion of the contract value associated to the Met Office derives from a single £1bn Microsoft contract in 2021.

1. Met Office - £1.03 billion

2. Ministry of Defence - £604 million

3. Department for Science, Innovation & Technology - £501 million

4. Cabinet Office - £489 million

5. NHS England - £384 million

6. Blackpool Council - £300 million

7. Transport for London - £259 million

8. University of Bristol - £189 million

9. University of York - £92 million

10. Department of Health & Social Care - £89 million

Chart 3: Largest suppliers of AI by contract value, since 2018

Tussell's analysis shows that, by value of awarded AI contracts, the UK public sector's top AI suppliers include Microsoft, Palantir, KPMG, Hochtief and the LGC. In other words: large multiservice providers.

1. Microsoft - £1.03 billion

2. Palantir - £628 million

3. KPMG - £320 million

4. Hochtief - £300 million

5. Laboratory of the Government Chemist - £284 million

6. Init - £259 million

7. IBM - £247 million

8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise - £176 million

9. EY - £146 million

10. FutureLearn - £92 million

Chart 4: AI contract award value since 2018, mapped by HQ of awarded supplier *

The launch of the Sovereign AI Fund underlines the UK Government's ambition to support home-grown AI firms. But is that ambition translating into procurement?

Since 2018, Tussell's analysis shows that UK-based suppliers have won just under £2.19 billion in AI-related contracts, compared with £2.28 billion awarded to US-based firms.

That difference is now relatively small. Just a few months ago, US suppliers were ahead by close to £1 billion.

Following Prime Minister Andy Burnham's fresh push to support UK-based suppliers and jobs, this momentum towards UK AI providers could accelerate.

* This analysis was conducted using Beaurau van Dijk's FAME database. It has been manually cleaned and augmented by Tussell to give an accurate picture of the ultimate owner of a company’s country of origin. If this could not be identified, the company's headquarters was used as a proxy.

Chart 5: Breakdown of AI-related contract value by theme

The UK public sector is harnessing AI to pursue a wide range of objectives - and this diversity is reflected in the variety of contracts being awarded.

To better understand where government procurement is focused, we asked ChatGPT to categorise these contracts using taxonomies derived from the three strategic pillars of the AI Opportunities Action Plan.

Please note this AI categorisation is still a work-in-progress, and results may change as we improve the model.

Here are the results:

Below, we've spotlighted some key contracts from these categories to illustrate what each means.

• Compute & Infrastructure - focuses on providing the physical and digital backbone for AI - from high-performance computing and cloud platforms to sovereign infrastructure that ensures secure, scalable access to compute resources (e.g. the Met Office's £1bn Supercomputing contract)
  
  

• Adoption & Deployment - contracts which promote the piloting and scaling of AI projects, and encouraging uptake across society (e.g. National Highway's £35mn contract with Deloitte to introduce a 'Digital Lab' in their Chief Data Office)
  
  

• Innovation & Frontier AI - supports cutting-edge AI research and the development (e.g. IBM's £13.5mn contract to deliver 'GenAI Lighthouse Projects' within the DWP)
  
  

• Data Management & Enablement - covers unlocking, standardising and sharing high-value datasets so that AI models can be developed and deployed responsibly (e.g. NHS England's £182mn contract with Palantir to provide a 'Federated Data Platform')
  
  

• Governance, Management & Regulation - contracts that promote the safe and ethical use of AI in society (e.g. Anmut Consulting's £25mn contract with National Highways to develop their Chief Data Office's 'Data Governance & Assurance' division, including their AI Governance Strategy)
  
  

• Skills & Workforce - up-skilling staff to ensure they can properly harness the potential of AI in their work (e.g. Kainos' £7.4mn contract with the MOD to provide staff "the capacity and skills required to deliver AI and AS concepts sustainably and at scale")
  
  

• Market Confidence & Public Trust - contracts that promote transparency, ethics and public engagement around AI.

Chart 6: Top 5 AI frameworks (by value of call-off contracts)

Many of the identified AI contracts were awarded via a framework agreement or Dynamic Purchasing System.

These preferred-supplier agreements enable contracting authorities to expedite their procurement by publishing and awarding tenders to a closed group of pre-vetted suppliers.

Tussell's framework intelligence shows that just over a third of the contracts awarded since Jan 2018 were called-off via a framework agreement.

The wider public sector, by comparison, awards roughly 1 in every 4 contracts via a framework, meaning buyers seem to be harnessing frameworks more frequently when purchasing AI-related services.

👉  Want to dig into the data for yourself? Download a sample here.

What is the AI Procurement Tracker telling us?

AI procurement is accelerating. 2026 is already the biggest year for AI-related procurement by contract value.

But the scale of AI procurement should not be over-emphasised (yet).

£5 billion sounds like a lot, but that still only accounts for roughly 4% of the total value of all IT Services and Software contracts awarded by the public sector over the Jan 2018 - Jan 2026 period (£123bn)

If the volume and value of AI-related contracts continue to grow at their current pace, that share is likely to rise over the coming decade. For now, however, AI remains a relatively small part of overall government technology spending.

What's the methodology behind the AI Procurement Tracker?

The AI Tracker draws on open public procurement data, aggregated by Tussell’s market intelligence platform.

We have filtered all awarded contracts in the period January 2018 to March 2026 for only those containing keywords in their title or description that are capabilities, products or companies.

For the categorisation of the AI contracts, we've used ChatGPT with human oversight.

AI Tracker - in the media

We're proud that the national media has utilised Tussell's AI Procurement Tracker to report on the state of AI procurement in the UK public sector. Examples include:

• Sky News, Revealed: How much the government's spending on AI, Nov 2025

• ComputerWeekly, Can UK government achieve ambition to become AI powerhouse?, Jan 2025

• UKAuthority, Predictive analytics accounts for most of public sector's AI spending, Jan 2025

• The Guardian, UK government to list use of AI on mandatory register, Nov 2024

• Diginomica, AI in Healthcare - how to support a workforce of health experts but tech novices?, Nov 2024

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Measuring what is and isn’t AI is highly subjective.

We stand by our prudently narrow definition based on explicitly AI-related keywords, but we will continue to iterate on our exact definition as time goes on.

If you have any questions or comments about how the AI Procurement Tracker was compiled, email us at contact@tussell.com

FAQs

Who is Tussell?

Tussell is the market's trusted source of insight on UK government contracts & spending. Our premium market intelligence platform is designed for, and used by, top suppliers to government to make data-led commercial decisions in their public sector market. We aggregate and enhance data on UK government pre-tender buying signals, tenders, contracts, framework agreements, invoice data and key decision-maker contact details.

How do I find government AI opportunities and contracts?

You can use open source portals, like Find a Tender, to be alerted to newly published AI-related tenders - but functionality is limited, and you risk missing opportunities found across other lesser-known portals. Platforms like Tussell aggregate all public sector opportunities together into a single place, streamlining your process and giving you the confidence you're not missing out on opportunities.

Who is winning government AI contracts, and who is awarding them?

You can use open source portals, like Find a Tender, to run analysis on who is winning and awarding government AI contracts - but this would be a massively time-intensive process, and be reliant on an inherently fragmented and incomplete database. Platforms like Tussell collect and enhance all available data on live and historic government contracts, enabling you to see in just a couple of clicks who is awarding and winning AI contracts, inc. their value, duration and details.