The numbers are in from the largest study of Social Value delivery to date – and they point to a movement entering a decisive new phase in 2026.
Since 2020, £32bn of validated Social Value has been reported across the UK. Looking under the hood, that translates to huge impact across the UK, including:
- 300,000 local jobs
- 720,000 weeks of apprenticeships
- £9.3bn spent locally
- 4 million tonnes of carbon saved
These figures, measured using the TOM System, show that Social Value can be delivered at pace and at scale.
But scale alone doesn’t tell us whether impact is well targeted, consistently delivered, or built to last. That’s the challenge now.
The next stage cannot be about cautious, incremental progress. We need a step change — being radical in our goals and how we collaborate across sectors. We all have a role in hardwiring Social Value into the way the economy works.
Guy Battle, CEO, Social Value Portal
In this article, we explore where Social Value is delivering right now, and what it will take to improve the quality, consistency, and long-term value of that impact in 2026 and beyond.
💡 New to Social Value? Check out our beginner’s guide
Social Value in 2026: Maturity, scrutiny, opportunity
Three things are coming together that make the next phase of Social Value feel different from the last.
Maturity
Social Value delivery has grown up.
Projects are using a wider mix of Social Value initiatives, and each initiative is delivering more in its own right. Between 2021 and 2024:
- Average apprenticeship weeks per project tripled
- Volunteer hours more than doubled
- Spend with SMEs (Small-Medium Enterprises) doubled
- Spend with VCFSEs (Voluntary, Community, Faith, and Social Enterprises) quadrupled
What matters isn't just how much is delivered, but how deliberately.
Organisations are moving away from one-off, single-issue actions and toward programmes that run for longer, cover more ground, and sit more naturally within how they already operate.
Scrutiny
At the same time, expectations have changed.
Under the Procurement Act 2023, Social Value can’t be assessed once and forgotten about. It’s increasingly built into contract management through KPIs (key performance indicators), with delivery reviewed regularly rather than at the end of a contract.
And it’s not just procurement driving this. Social Value now sits in a much brighter spotlight. Regulators like the CMA and ASA have been clear that claims about social and environmental impact need to be backed up with evidence. That expectation is now shared by customers, communities, and the public.
💡 Explore: Our introduction to the Procurement Act 2023
💡 Dive deeper: How to create Social Value KPIs under the Procurement Act 2023
Opportunity
That combination of maturity and pressure creates a real opportunity.
Measurement systems have improved to the point where organisations can get a much clearer picture of the impact they’re already having, and use that insight to make better decisions. At the same time, awareness has grown across the board. Buyers, suppliers, and the voluntary sector are more ready than ever to engage early, work together, and invest in approaches that last.
And there’s a clear performance upside.
For businesses, well-designed Social Value programmes are linked to better commercial outcomes, from winning contracts to attracting talent. For public authorities, Social Value offers a practical route to better value for money, making sure every pound spent delivers wider benefit alongside the core service.
The five levers shaping Social Value delivery
When we look at Social Value delivery between 2020 and 2025, it’s clear that impact consistently concentrates around five core levers:
Jobs and skills
The UK labour market continues to face deep-rooted challenges. Around one million young people are not in education, employment or training, while skills shortages persist across many sectors.
Against that backdrop, it’s no surprise that jobs and skills remain the dominant lever for Social Value delivery. Since 2020, this has translated into:
- Over 300,000 local jobs
- 720,000 weeks of apprenticeships
- 114,000 weeks of work experience
- 78,500 weeks of training opportunities
What’s changing is the nature of that delivery.
Over time, quality has come to the fore. We’re seeing a clear shift away from one-off placements toward career pathways: longer apprenticeships, sustained training, mentoring, and progression-focused interventions designed to support long-term employability.
💡 The TOM System: Five new Measures that better capture the value of work experience.
Procurement
Since the Public Services (Social Value) Act was introduced in 2012, procurement has been the primary route through which the public pound has unlocked Social Value for communities.
Across the £32bn of validated Social Value delivered nationally, the data shows a median delivery rate of 100% and a median Social Value-Add of 16%. In practical terms, that means for every £1 spent through procurement, an additional 16p of value is being created for people, communities, and the environment.
Delivery isn’t uniform, though. Performance varies by sector and supplier size, underlining the importance of the Procurement Act 2023, and its introduction of KPIs.
💡 What is Social Value in procurement? Explore our complete guide
Community investment
Community investment remains a universal feature of Social Value delivery, but the way it’s done is evolving.
Since 2020, organisations have delivered:
- 106,000 hours of volunteering
- £6.8m in community donations
- 50,000 hours of student support
What separates higher-performing approaches is focus. Stronger outcomes follow where activity is shaped around local needs, developed with community partners, and aligned to wider strategies, keeping spend, skills, and time circulating within communities.
Take Morgan Sindall Property Services’ work on social mobility as an example. Alongside partners including The Diana Award, ELSA Next Generation, and Construction Youth Trust, the business has supported young people through mentoring, training, and aspirational programmes that open up career pathways. Nearly 1000 students took part, with over half reporting increased confidence in their future careers.
I never knew there were so many roles within the industry. I thought it was all building site work.
Year 10 student
Wellbeing and inclusion
Wellbeing and inclusion are increasingly being treated as indicators of organisational resilience, closely linked to retention, recruitment, performance, and workforce stability.
That shift is reflected in wider evidence. For example, the CIPD’s Health and Wellbeing at Work 2025 report highlights workplace wellbeing as a strategic concern for organisations grappling with absence, engagement, and retention.
On the ground, delivery is growing. Organisations have provided wellbeing programme access for over 84,000 staff, alongside 40,000 hours of expert equality, diversity and inclusion training and widespread investment in inclusive employment practices.
In sectors such as healthcare and professional services, wellbeing Measures are among the most frequently used and most consistently delivered.
Environmental impact
Environmental delivery is making a real contribution. Since 2020, Social Value initiatives have supported:
- 4 million tonnes of carbon emissions saved
- 5 million tonnes of waste reduced
Yet environmental Measures still appear less frequently than social and economic ones. This doesn’t reflect a lack of activity so much as a lack of integration, with environmental outcomes often delivered through parallel systems rather than embedded into Social Value approaches.
That gap represents a big growth opportunity. Environmental action is rarely standalone; it connects directly to skills, jobs, cost reduction, and community benefit. Bringing these strands together can build more joined-up, resilient impact strategies.
Six ways Social Value will grow in 2026 and beyond
The next phase of Social Value growth won’t come from any single change, but from strengthening and better connecting a small number of practices.
These six areas consistently show where delivery will deepen, scale, and becomes more resilient in 2026 and beyond.
Pre-market engagement and solutions design
When buyers understand local need, the capacity of the market, and the delivery infrastructure already in place, they can design contracts that set everyone up to succeed.
Early engagement with the market is the key to this. It helps clarify expectations, surface practical delivery ideas, and create space for partnerships to form.
The result is better-designed ITTs, more realistic proposals, and Social Value commitments that are both proportionate and a genuine value-add to the contract.
Procurement
Where procurement asks are tailored to sector strengths – for instance, apprenticeships in construction, or digital inclusion in technology – Social Value commitments tend to be more targeted and consistently delivered.
Guided by the National Procurement Policy Statement, buyers are getting more confident in writing Social Value into core contract deliverables, as well as shaping place-based approaches and facilitating deeper collaboration with SMEs and VCFSEs.
Supply chain
The supply chain has sometimes been referred to as “the bottom of the Social Value iceberg”.
By widening participation beyond Tier 1 suppliers, Social Value practitioners have an opportunity to unlock local knowledge, specialist capability, and delivery capacity that no single supplier can provide alone.
The most effective approaches feature shared Social Value priority areas and measurement frameworks, with progress regularly reviewed. This requires the buyer and Tier 1 supplier to actively cascade expectations down the supply chain in a way that is proportionate and achievable for all delivery partners.
Policy
As we’re already seeing, public sector procurement strategies are increasingly aligning with Government priorities such as local economic growth, decarbonisation, skills, and tackling inequality.
In the private sector too, however, businesses are making Social Value core to their strategic missions. For many international businesses, such as ISS, this means consolidating approaches across borders for a truly global Social Value footprint.
Radical collaboration
Where organisations work together, with stakeholders pooling resources and aligning effort around shared challenges, they can create truly transformative results.
These collaborations are increasingly multi-sector, combining the strengths of public bodies, businesses, and community organisations. VCFSEs play a central role, not just as recipients of activity, but as co-designers and delivery partners.
Initiatives like the County Durham Pound and the Rotherham Together Partnership show what true radical collaboration can achieve.
We should consider not just the price of the goods and services we buy, but the true value that we can bring to local people, businesses and communities.
Councillor Chris Read, Leader of our member Rotherham Council
Corporate culture
If Social Value is to keep maturing and improving, it’s crucial to develop organisational cultures that prioritise it.
The responsibility starts at the top, and leadership must set a clear tone. But Social Value ultimately belongs to everyone. On a practical level, many organisations are embedding Social Value into job roles, and departmental and individual objectives.
Effective strategies should be co-created with those involved in delivery, from employees and suppliers to service users and community partners. This is how the movement builds shared ownership.
A leader’s role is to fulfil their responsibility to care for their place and all things in their place for their children’s children’s children.
Dr Paul Callaghan Aboriginal Elder, Author, Professor, Callaghan Cultural Consultancy at the Social Value Conference 2025
Kickstart your Social Value in 2026
For organisations that want to start making the right moves right now, here are a few practical moves you to get started:
- Refresh your view of local needs: Before your next procurement or programme design, take a fresh look at the data. Review current labour market trends, skills gaps, and community priorities, and sense-check them with local partners. Social Value is most effective when it responds to what’s happening now, not last year.
- Pressure-test your Social Value strategy for 2026: Ask some hard questions. Is Social Value genuinely shared across the organisation, or does it sit with one team? Is it aligned to what your organisation is actually well placed to deliver? If the answers aren’t clear, use this as a moment to refocus and sharpen your approach.
- Reset expectations with your key suppliers: Your suppliers play a major role in your impact footprint. Set time aside to align on priorities, delivery models, and what good performance looks like in practice, particularly where KPIs and reporting expectations are tightening.
- Commit to one meaningful collaboration: Choose a local, systemic issue – such as skills shortages, economic inactivity, or Net Zero – and work with others to address it. Be clear about what you bring to the table, and where partnering with others will achieve more than acting alone.
- Build Social Value into everyday roles and decisions: Identify where Social Value can be reflected in job roles, team objectives, and routine decision-making. This is how delivery becomes part of how work gets done, rather than something bolted on.
Want the data behind this?
The State of the Nation 2025 report sets out the full picture: national trends, sector benchmarks, the five levers, and the enablers that support sustainable growth.
📖 Download: Social Value – The State of the Nation here
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