Announcement of publication date for 2025/26 annual statistics bulletin
The SSRO would like to make stakeholders aware that the forthcoming Annual Qualifying Defence Contract Statistics: 2025/26 bulletin will be published on 28 July 2026.
There are a number of changes the SSRO would like to ensure readers are aware of, detailed below.
Forthcoming changes to the annual statistics bulletin
In summary the SSRO has reviewed the annual statistics bulletin, with a view to simplifying the content and following discussions with stakeholders focussing on their needs. The SSRO will make a number of changes to existing statistics which will be introduced in the Annual Qualifying Defence Contract Statistics: 2025/26 bulletin. New statistics will be added, some existing statistics will be removed, and new breakdowns of active and completed contracts will be introduced. The Annual Compliance Bulletin will also be integrated as a new chapter in the statistics bulletin. The changes will be subject to a review of data quality and confidentiality rules during the production of the bulletin.
In detail, the following changes will be made:
- An active/completed contract breakdown will be added to most statistics.
- A new statistic will be added showing the total estimated price of contracts broken down by price band.
- In the completed contracts section, a pricing method breakdown will be added for average profit rates at latest time of agreement/completion.
- Some statistics in the completed contracts section will now additionally show the estimated price and profit of contracts at the date the contract became a QDC/QSC.
- Three new statistics relating to components will be added; the total number of components reported, the number of components per contract, and the number of components by price band.
- Some statistics which are not commonly used by stakeholders will be removed:
- Table 1: Average (mean) estimated contract duration of QDCs/QSCs from previous bulletins
- Table 4: Total estimated contract price of QDCs/QSCs from previous bulletins
- Figure 9: Flow of the estimated total contract price of all QDCs/QSCs, annual profile over the expected contract duration (excluding unprofiled amounts), by financial year
- Figure 12a: Top 10 most frequently reported combinations of pricing methods by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC
- Table 7a: Number of QDCs/QSCs that have reported an estimated contract profit rate above/below the baseline profit rate, by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC
- Figure 19: Number of reported sub-contracts with a value of £1 million or more, by price band and financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC
- Figure 20: Total estimated price of reported sub-contracts with a value of £1 million or more, by price band and financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC
- Financial year breakdowns from the following statistics will be removed:
- Figure 4: Number of QDCs/QSCs by estimated duration and financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC, and by contract type
- Figure 5: Number of QDCs/QSCs that are contracted to SMEs, by financial year in which the contract became a QDC/QSC, and by contract type
- Figure 6: Estimated stock of total contract price of QDCs/QSCs by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC, split by estimated cost and profit
- Figure 10: Number of QDCs/QSCs by estimated contract price, by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC, and by contract type
- Table 5: Mean and median estimated contract price, by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC, and by contract type
- Figure 12: Number of QDCs/QSCs that use each pricing method in a proportion of the contract, by financial year contract became a QDC/QSC, and by contract type
- Figure 17: Number of reported sub-contracts with a value of £1 million or more, by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC, and SME status
- Figure 18: Total and average estimated price of subcontracts, by financial year in which contract became a QDC/QSC
- Quarterly breakdowns will be removed, in line with the discontinuation of the quarterly series.
- The sub-contracts chapter will be retired, but the core sub-contract statistics on number and price will be retained and moved to the respective sections of the bulletin.