Working with UKHSA is becoming more transparent for vaccine companies, as its August 2026 vaccine prospectus sets out how the agency buys vaccines, how it engages suppliers and which contracts are coming up.
Vaccine companies that plan around the pipeline, engage early and support local delivery alongside national contracts will be best placed to contribute to the programme’s aims.
Routine NHS immunisation programmes in England deliver around 33 million vaccinations a year, protecting people against 21 infectious diseases from pregnancy to old age, and the seasonal flu programme reaches a further 18 million people. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) sits at the centre of that system: it advises on which vaccines the programme should offer, buys them on behalf of all four UK nations and manages their distribution to the NHS. In August 2026 it published a vaccine prospectus that sets out, more openly than before, how it procures vaccines, how it wants to work with industry and which contracts are coming up over the next two years. For vaccine manufacturers, the prospectus is a practical guide to the national market. It also arrives at a time when uptake of every routine childhood vaccine in England is below the 95% target, a reminder that securing supply at national level is only part of the task. Working with UKHSA effectively means understanding both the procurement process and the local delivery on which the programme’s results depend.
UKHSA provides the scientific secretariat for the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which reviews the evidence and makes independent recommendations to ministers on which vaccines to offer and to whom. Once a programme is agreed, UKHSA acts as the contracting authority, buying vaccines for England and the devolved governments together, which gives the UK economies of scale and a single, consistent choice of product. Delivery then passes to the NHS, through GP practices, community pharmacies and school-age immunisation services, with NHS England and local authority directors of public health supporting the programme locally.
The agency also runs the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC), where more than 200 scientists work on around 100 projects a year with industry, academic and international partners, from discovery through to evaluation after licensing. That capability gives UKHSA a role across the whole vaccine pathway, and the prospectus presents it as a point of collaboration for companies developing new products.
The annex to the prospectus lists the vaccine contracts UKHSA expects to tender, with indicative timings:
UKHSA has committed to extending the pipeline’s timeline so that suppliers receive even earlier notice, and it publishes the pipeline on GOV.UK. For manufacturers planning production capacity, licensing and launch timelines, this level of visibility makes it possible to align development and supply plans with the points at which the national market opens.
In England, GP practices and community pharmacies buy adult flu vaccines directly from manufacturers, while the devolved governments already procure centrally. The UK government is exploring whether England should follow the same model, on the basis that central purchasing and distribution could bring economies of scale and greater efficiency, and the pipeline sets out a route through a dynamic market from October 2027.
The prospectus describes several routes for suppliers:
UKHSA will also use the flexibilities of the Procurement Act 2023 to design contracts around value, transparency and simplicity, and its commercial opportunities guidance sets out the frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems it uses alongside competitive tendering.
Public confidence forms part of the picture too. UKHSA is running a public dialogue on how it works with the vaccines industry, with around 100 participants and targeted engagement with under-represented communities, to identify the principles the public expects such collaboration to follow. Its findings are expected in spring 2027 and are likely to inform how partnerships with industry are designed and communicated.
Contracts will increasingly reflect UKHSA’s wider priorities. The prospectus commits the agency to embedding environmental sustainability, economic growth and health equity in its commercial strategy, and to working with suppliers to strengthen the resilience of critical supply chains. On equity, it states that UKHSA will “seek appropriate ways to use our commercial practice and relationships to promote more equal health outcomes for disadvantaged communities.” For suppliers, that suggests bids and contract performance will increasingly be judged on supply security and contribution to equitable access as well as price.
National procurement ensures that vaccines are available, and uptake depends on what happens in practices, pharmacies and communities. Coverage in England is falling or flat across the main childhood programmes, and in 2025/26 the gap between the least and most deprived areas reached 8.4 percentage points for the second MMR dose at five years. The prospectus names increasing uptake as one of UKHSA’s core aims, and much of the work needed to achieve it sits with local NHS teams who have limited capacity for outreach.
Local programmes show what additional support can achieve. Two CHASE programmes presented at the 2026 UKHSA Conference illustrate the approach:
Both were designed with the NHS around patient need, and both show that funded outreach capacity can lift uptake within existing NHS structures.
The prospectus gives manufacturers a clearer basis for planning:
The vaccine prospectus gives industry a clearer view of the national market than it has had before, with a published pipeline, defined routes for engagement and a commitment to earlier notice of new contracts. The proposed centralisation of adult flu procurement will change how a large part of that market operates, and companies that engage now will help shape it. Working with UKHSA also means recognising that the agency’s aims extend beyond securing supply to raising uptake and narrowing inequalities, which depend on delivery in every practice, pharmacy and community. Companies that support both halves of the system, national supply and local uptake, will contribute most to a programme that is currently falling short of its targets.
CHASE works with pharmaceutical and medtech companies and the NHS to improve patient access to care through outsourced field teams, NHS-Industry Partnerships and market insights. Our immunisation programmes help practices and Integrated Care Boards reach the patients most likely to miss out on vaccination.
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The UKHSA vaccine prospectus, published in August 2026, sets out how the agency procures vaccines, how it works with industry and which contracts it plans to tender. It covers routine programmes delivering around 33 million vaccinations a year in England, and includes a pipeline of procurements to 2028.
Companies can contact UKHSA through its Commercial Front Door at industry@ukhsa.gov.uk and take part in early market engagement, including requests for information, webinars and working groups. Key suppliers also engage through the Vaccines Industry and Government Working Group and the Strategic Supplier Relationship Management programme.
The pipeline includes new contracts for MMR, MenACWY and BCG starting in 2027, a COVID-19 variant procurement in spring 2027 and RSV contracts running to June 2028. It also sets out a dynamic market for adult flu vaccines from October 2027.
GP practices and community pharmacies in England currently buy adult flu vaccines directly, while the devolved governments procure centrally. The government is exploring central procurement for England, with a dynamic market from October 2027 and competitive procurement from August 2028.
UKHSA names increasing uptake as a core aim and commits to using its commercial relationships to promote more equal health outcomes. Delivery sits with NHS teams, where local programmes using funded multilingual recall have raised childhood uptake from 64.4% to 76.8%.
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