Bytes the fifth-largest overall government supplier in 2018 - report

Bytes' public sector wins eclipse IBM, Atos, Fujitsu, and Capita

Bytes Software Services was the fifth-largest supplier to central government last year, according to research from public sector consultant Tussell.

The software reseller won contracts with a total value of £328m, making it the largest IT-dedicated supplier to the government last year.

It was ranked behind just four other organisations: defence contractor QinetiQ (£359m), outsourcer Mitie (£514m), infrastructure provider Amey (£641m) and Rolls-Royce (£776m).

Bytes was ranked ahead of IT behemoths Capita, DXC Technology, Atos, IBM, and Fujitsu.

The reseller's positioning was aided by its being awarded a mammoth £150m NHS contact last year, which will see it roll out Windows 10 licences.

Bytes Group CEO Neil Murphy told CRN that the firm has been seeing success with public sector bodies of all sizes.

"We have been focusing on delivering software solutions and software services to a whole range of public sector organisations from the very smallest educational establishments to the goliaths of the NHS and the MOD," he said.

"We have tried to deliver high levels of service to them all, no matter what their size and scale. I hope this has resonated well with our customers and will help us to continue to grow our public sector revenues this coming year.

"Important areas of growth for us have been security, Microsoft Cloud solutions, Windows 10 and in more recent months, AWS. These growth areas should continue to be significant drivers for consolidation and increased productivity for the next few years."

In total £49.5bn worth of contracts was handed out by the public sector last year, with IT and telecoms accounting for eight per cent of this figure.

The construction industry saw the most public sector spending last year, with nearly £14bn worth of contracts awarded (28 per cent).

Softcat meanwhile features among the top 20 suppliers to local government, ranked 17th with an award value of £81m.

Tussell said that the direct values of frameworks, such as G-Cloud, are not included in the report.