TrackersProcurement Act adoption
Procurement Act 2023 adoption tracker
The Procurement Act 2023 did not switch the UK over on a single day. Two regimes are still running side by side, and which one governs a tender depends on when its procurement started — not on today's date. This tracks the split, rebuilt daily from Find a Tender.
Last updated · Covers notices published to August 2026 · 200,618 counted since January 2021
In one line: The publication date of a UK tender does not tell you which procurement rules govern it. In July 2026, 17 months after the Procurement Act 2023 took effect, 15.4% of notices published on Find a Tender were still issued under the pre-Act regime — 974 of 6,323 — because a procurement that began before commencement runs to completion under the rules it started with.
Two regimes, side by side
Share of Find a Tender notices by the regime each was published under. The Act's share rises almost vertically at commencement, then stops — and the band above it has never closed.
Key takeaways
- Check a notice's legal basis before assuming which rules apply. One published this month may still be running under the pre-Act regime, with the older timescales, standstill provisions and challenge routes.
- The tail is structural, not resistance. Procurements that began before commencement run to completion under the rules they started with, and a framework established the week before can still be issuing call-offs four years later.
- Uptake of the Act's new instruments is uneven. The competitive flexible procedure has become a routine above-threshold route; dynamic markets, the replacement for DPSs, have barely been used at all.
- Below-threshold transparency is the largest volume change. Contracts that once left no public record now do, which makes low-value incumbency visible for the first time.
Which regime governs the notice in front of you
Every notice states its legal basis, so this is a lookup rather than a judgement call. On Find a Tender it appears in the notice detail; in the underlying OCDS data it is the legal basis field. Match it against the table below before assuming which timescales, standstill provisions and challenge routes apply.
| If the legal basis cites | The procurement runs under | What that tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Procurement Act 2023 (UKPGA 2023/54) | The Procurement Act 2023 | A procurement started on or after 24 February 2025. The Act's assessment summaries, standstill and contract performance duties apply. |
| Directive 2014/24/EU (CELEX 32014L0024) | Public Contracts Regulations 2015 | A mainstream public-sector procurement that began before commencement — the pre-Act timescales and remedies apply even if the notice is published today. |
| Directive 2014/25/EU (CELEX 32014L0025) | Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 | A utilities procurement (water, energy, transport, postal) under the pre-Act regime. |
| Directive 2014/23/EU (CELEX 32014L0023) | Concession Contracts Regulations 2016 | A concession — the operator takes demand risk — under the pre-Act regime. |
| Directive 2009/81/EC (CELEX 32009L0081) | Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 | Defence and security procurement, which the Act largely leaves to its own regime. |
| Regulation 1370/2007 (CELEX 32007R1370) | Public passenger transport rules | Rail and road passenger services, awarded under their own regime rather than the general one. |
Has the switchover finished?
Over the last 3 complete months, 15.9% of notices were published under the pre-Act regime. Over the same three months a year earlier it was 18.9% — a shift of −3.0 percentage points.
The pre-Act share is falling, but slowly. Continuing in a straight line — which assumes the decline stays even, and it need not — it would take roughly 5 more years to reach zero. That is the right order of magnitude for the instrument driving it: a framework established just before commencement can issue call-offs under the old rules for four years. Treat the split as a standing feature of the market, not a queue about to clear.
Adoption month by month
Share of Find a Tender notices published under each regime, by month of first publication. The Act commenced part-way through February 2025, so that month is split.
| Month | Procurement Act 2023 | Pre-Act regime | Share under the Act |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 2024 | 0 | 1,963 | 0.0% |
| December 2024 | 0 | 1,761 | 0.0% |
| January 2025 | 0 | 1,978 | 0.0% |
| February 2025 | 121 | 2,641 | 4.4% |
| March 2025 | 1,627 | 1,285 | 55.9% |
| April 2025 | 2,790 | 1,276 | 68.6% |
| May 2025 | 6,965 | 1,011 | 87.3% |
| June 2025 | 3,534 | 992 | 78.1% |
| July 2025 | 3,894 | 1,358 | 74.1% |
| August 2025 | 3,431 | 1,207 | 74.0% |
| September 2025 | 4,111 | 1,143 | 78.2% |
| October 2025 | 4,464 | 1,210 | 78.7% |
| November 2025 | 4,056 | 801 | 83.5% |
| December 2025 | 3,992 | 916 | 81.3% |
| January 2026 | 4,455 | 917 | 82.9% |
| February 2026 | 4,755 | 1,026 | 82.3% |
| March 2026 | 5,460 | 1,506 | 78.4% |
| April 2026 | 4,318 | 1,151 | 79.0% |
| May 2026 | 5,721 | 925 | 86.1% |
| June 2026 | 4,781 | 1,108 | 81.2% |
| July 2026 | 5,349 | 974 | 84.6% |
| August 2026(partial) | 1,820 | 351 | 83.8% |
The Procurement Act 2023 commenced on 24 February 2025. 9 notices over this period carry a legal basis that maps to neither regime. They appear in neither column, but are included in the total each share is calculated against, so the two shares do not sum to 100%.
Why the old regime never reaches zero
A procurement that started before commencement finishes under the rules it started with. The Act did not retrospectively convert live procedures, so every pre-Act framework, dynamic purchasing system and open procedure continues to generate notices under the old regime until it completes — and a framework can run for four years.
That shows up in the shape of the data rather than only in the totals. Legacy notices sit disproportionately at the award and contract end of the lifecycle, where a procedure is finishing, while Act notices are far more likely to be at planning or tender stage, where one is starting. The legacy share is a tail of work in progress, not a group of buyers refusing to move.
Call-offs under pre-Act commercial tools are a visible part of this: the Act gives them their own procedure label, so they can be counted rather than inferred.
Over the last 12 months, 70 notices under the Act were explicitly published as awards made using a pre-Act commercial tool.
Which procedures the Act's notices actually use
The Act did not just relabel the old procedures. It introduced the competitive flexible procedure, replaced dynamic purchasing systems with dynamic markets, and extended transparency duties below threshold. Uptake of each is very uneven.
Of the two main above-threshold competitive routes under the Act, the competitive flexible procedure accounts for 32.2% — 2,677 notices against 5,641 using the open procedure. Dynamic markets remain rare by comparison, at 66 notices.
| Procedure | Threshold | Notices | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below threshold - without competition | Below | 15,999 | 30.0% |
| Below threshold - limited competition | Below | 7,625 | 14.3% |
| Below threshold - open competition | Below | 6,439 | 12.1% |
| (unspecified) | Above | 6,136 | 11.5% |
| Open procedure | Above | 5,641 | 10.6% |
| Below threshold - unknown | Below | 4,246 | 8.0% |
| Direct award | Above | 3,181 | 6.0% |
| Competitive flexible procedure | Above | 2,677 | 5.0% |
| Award under framework | Above | 621 | 1.2% |
| Below threshold - award under framework | Below | 567 | 1.1% |
| Using pre-Procurement Act commercial tool | Above | 70 | 0.1% |
| Dynamic market | Above | 66 | 0.1% |
| Below threshold - by reference to dynamic market | Below | 14 | 0.0% |
Notices published under the Act in the last 12 months: 53,282. Over the same period, 12,028 were published under the pre-Act regime. Procedure labels are reproduced exactly as published.
What this changes for bidders
The practical consequence of a two-regime market is that the rules governing an opportunity depend on when its procurement started, not on today's date. A notice published this month may still be running under the pre-Act regime, with the older timescales and standstill rules — reading it as an Act procurement will give the wrong answer about what happens next.
The competitive flexible procedure is the change most likely to affect how a bid is written. It lets a buyer design its own multi-stage process rather than pick from a fixed menu, so two notices using the same procedure name can run entirely differently. The process description in the tender documents carries more weight than it used to.
Below-threshold transparency is where the largest volume change sits. Contracts that would previously have been awarded with no published notice now leave a record, which makes low-value incumbency visible for the first time — useful if the aim is to find who currently holds work that is coming up.
Method and coverage
Every notice in the UK notice record carries a legal basis. Notices under the new regime cite the Procurement Act 2023 itself; notices under the pre-Act regime cite the EU directives the old regulations implemented. This tracker reads that field directly, so a notice is classified by what it declares rather than by inference from its dates or wording.
A legal basis that does not map to either regime is counted and shown as unclassified rather than being folded into one side. If a future amending Act appears in the record, it will surface here as an unclassified count rather than quietly deflating the adoption share.
Counts are by month of first publication. The current month is always incomplete and is labelled as such — its lower total is the month still running, not a fall in activity.
Find a Tender only. Contracts Finder does not publish a legal basis, and Scottish procurement runs under a separate devolved regime, so neither can be classified — both are excluded from every figure here.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions
When did the Procurement Act 2023 come into force?
The Procurement Act 2023 commenced on 24 February 2025. Notices published under it appear in the record from that date; the first partial month is February 2025.
Why are notices still published under the old rules?
Procurements that began before 24 February 2025 continue under the regime they started with. Frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems established before commencement keep generating call-off and award notices under the pre-Act rules until they expire, which can be several years.
What is the competitive flexible procedure?
It is the Procurement Act 2023's replacement for the old restricted, negotiated and competitive dialogue procedures. Rather than choosing from a fixed set of process shapes, a buyer designs its own multi-stage procedure and describes it in the tender documents. Two procurements using this procedure can therefore run very differently, so the published process description matters more than the procedure name.
What replaced dynamic purchasing systems?
The Act replaced dynamic purchasing systems with dynamic markets, which suppliers can join at any point rather than only at set windows. Uptake has so far been low relative to frameworks, which remain the dominant route to market.
Does this cover the whole UK?
No. It covers Find a Tender, which is the UK-wide notice service for higher-value procurement and the only source that publishes a legal basis for every notice. Contracts Finder does not publish the field at all, and Scottish procurement runs under the separate Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, so neither can be classified and neither is counted here.
How often does this update?
The underlying figures are recomputed daily from the notice record. The date the data last changed is shown at the top of the page.
Related reading
Know which regime an opportunity is running under
Skim reads the notice record daily and tells you what is coming, who holds it now, and when it is up for renewal.