Renewal Scout · Issue #1
Public-sector cleaning and FM contracts ending soon, who holds them, and what buyers really pay. Every Monday.
This week in numbers (contracts ending Oct 2026 – Sep 2027):
- 308 cleaning, soft FM and FM contracts end in the next 12 months.
- 160 of them are single-buyer contracts worth £100k–£5m, the size regional firms win.
- 36% are currently held by SMEs.
- 142 are schools, trusts, colleges and universities.
Buyers usually go back to market 3–9 months before the end date, so the contracts below are being specified now.
What they really pay
We checked 32 public cleaning and FM contracts against the buyers' own payment records. In about a third, the buyer pays far more than the contract notice says. In another third, it pays far less. Only a third come in close to the headline.
| Buyer | Holder | Ends | Notice says (per year) | Buyer actually paid (12 months) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Midlands Ambulance Service | Churchill | Nov 2026 | £700k | £1.7m (excluding VAT) |
| Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust (FM) | ISS | Mar 2027 | £21.7m | £27m excluding VAT (£32.7m including VAT) |
| London Borough of Sutton (soft FM) | OCS (formerly Servest) | Apr 2027 | £1.3m | £0.46m |
| Wokingham Borough Council | Birkin | Aug 2027 | £1.3m | £0.5m |
| London Borough of Merton | Birkin | Apr 2027 | £4.9m (whole term) | £0.77m |
| Tees Valley Combined Authority | Ideal Cleaning | Oct 2026 | £80k | £49k (£4,089 a month) |
Notices can also miss most of a firm's work. Hertfordshire paid Hayward £2.2m for cleaning last year, while the one Hayward contract visible as ending next May is worth £315k a year.
And two notices name the wrong firm. Uttlesford's notice says Churchill holds its cleaning, but the council actually pays a local company, Partners In Grime, about £115k a year. Sutton's contract was awarded to Servest, but the payments now go to OCS, which bought Servest in 2022.
Why it matters: price against the notice and you'll either scare the buyer off or lose money on a job twice the size you expected. The real figure is in the buyer's own spending records.
12 renewals to watch
| Ends | Buyer | Contract | Headline value | Current holder |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Nov 2026 | West Midlands Ambulance Service | Domestic cleaning of premises | £3.5m | Churchill; Hi-Spec |
| 1 Dec 2026 | Housing 21 | Kitchen deep clean & TR19 duct cleaning | £700k | Innovate Corporation |
| 3 Dec 2026 | Imberhorne School | Cleaning services | £928k | KGB Cleaning South West |
| 6 Dec 2026 | Peabody | Soft FM incl. cleaning & washrooms | £2.4m | Wetton Cleaning Services |
| 7 Jan 2027 | Torbay Council | Cleaning services | £847k | Crystal Services |
| 31 Jan 2027 | Colchester City Council | Communal area building cleaning | £840k | Accuro Environmental |
| 31 Mar 2027 | Luton Council | General cleaning services (Lot 1) | £3.2m | Churchill |
| 1 Apr 2027 | London Borough of Merton | Corporate cleaning services | £4.9m | Birkin Cleaning Services |
| 31 May 2027 | Cumberland Council | Building cleaning services | £4.0m | Orian Solutions |
| 30 Jun 2027 | Spelthorne Borough Council | Cleaning services | £881k | YBC Cleaning Services |
| 31 Aug 2027 | Bedford College | Cleaning services | £3.4m | Brayborne Facilities Services |
| 20 Sep 2027 | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology | Cleaning services | £651k | Excellerate Services |
Headline value is the total over the whole contract term as published by the buyer. End dates are as published; buyers can use extension options.
See all 160 on the live renewal radar: renewalscout.co.uk
Pattern of the week: school cleaning runs on templates
Of the 142 education contracts ending in the next year, 84 follow one of two tender formats ("[School] ~ Cleaning Tender" and "CA1xxxx – [School] – Building Cleaning Services"). That points to a handful of procurement advisers running most school cleaning tenders. One relationship can put you in front of dozens of schools.
Want the inside view on one of these?
Reply with a contract name and we'll put together a one-page brief: what the buyer really pays each year, who else is paid for the same work, the specification, and when it's likely to be re-tendered. Your first brief is free.
Bidding for one right now? We also write tender answers for cleaning firms. See renewalscout.co.uk/bids.html.
Renewal Scout is compiled from official public-sector records. Values and dates are as published by buyers. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.