LinkedIn Contract Renewal

Description

We have an existing contract (Contract Number: C22135) with LinkedIn that we wish to continue in order to support our recruitment activities across Defra group. We particularly need to focus on attracting niche / specialist skills across professions such as Science, Digital, Analysts, Project Management, Veterinarians, etc,. In addition, LinkedIn will be a solution utilised within Synergy Recruitment activities, so we need to maintain continuity of service provision. The following are more details on what we utilise LinkedIn for: 1) Increase Employer Brand Awareness LinkedIn is the recognised number 1 / market leader for recruitment marketing and talent attraction and is the only tool that allows us to directly engage and build relationships with potential candidates, especially for niche / specialist and hard to fill roles. 2) Automated Job Posting LinkedIn has automated job posting capability, ensuring that Defra group roles are continually being promoted in the marketplace. The contract provides an agreed number of job slots based on the volume of activity across Defra group. We can use these job slots to ensure targeting is more impactful and supports the various Defra group and Government agendas. This saves the need for manual entry and management of all advertised roles across Defra group organisations. 3) Direct Candidate Sourcing LinkedIn can be used by recruiters to directly approach and target individuals with skills / capabilities required. Recruiters can build relationships with passive candidates (those not actively seeking roles), attracting them to apply for opportunities within our organisations. 4) Target Marketing Using workforce planning intelligence and demand planning, we build organisation and campaign specific 'Life Pages'. These are always on and visible to the public. These allows us to showcase organisational cultures, benefits and opportunities. When required we can amend the content to become more focused on specific careers / skills. These can be targeted to reach passive talent (candidates not actively seeking roles). 5) Labour Market Intelligence Access to the LMI tool provides further intelligence to support business decisions regarding sourcing locations aligned to property strategy and where untapped sources of talent may exist geographically. Whilst the primary purpose of investing in LinkedIn is to increase brand awareness and candidate attraction, it will have benefits on wider organisational objectives including workforce transformation; agility; place; skills/capabilities; devolution etc and the wider Civil Service workforce strategies around improving capability; place; digital; innovation and delivery. LinkedIn are the only supplier with the expertise and product to complete the task and requirements. They are the number one / market leader in this area. In addition, Synergy will utilise LinkedIn services, so we need to maintain our service provision in readiness. As with the previous contract renewal we have explored contract options including 'A la Carte' and the 'Hiring Enterprise Option'. Utilising the HEP we will achieve a cost saving of £294,462 over the 3 years duration of the contract. We achieve greater economies of scale by having a single Defra group contract rather than each organisation procuring directly with LinkedIn. Additional benefits are that we reduce the need to spend money on external advertising providers and recruitment agencies.

Key facts

Procedure

Direct award

Lots

1

Contact

pROCUREMENT

procurement@defra.gov.uk

03459335577

Contract period

14 Nov 2026 → 13 Nov 2029

Value incl. VAT

£1.2m

Category

services

Awarded suppliers

• LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company · GB-PPON-PNBB-9589-YHWZ · IE, IE

Ground given for limiting competition

The buyer’s own stated reason for awarding without open competition, as published. Their assertion, not a finding.

Sole supplier