The flattest market in the country
Short answer
Launceston City Council led Tasmania with 30 listings out of 487 — about 6 per cent. The tenth-ranked buyer published 16. No Australian jurisdiction shares its market more evenly.
Every other Australian market has a shape at the top. Western Australia has a department holding 10.5 per cent, the Northern Territory has two organisations holding 44 per cent between them, the Australian Capital Territory has a directorate at 18.6. Tasmania has nothing of the kind. Launceston City Council leads with 30 listings, the Department of Health and Local Buy follow with 28 each, and by the tenth buyer the count is still 16.
The top ten together account for roughly 45 per cent of the state: five councils, four state bodies and the local-government procurement arm, alternating down the list. Hobart City Council at 25 sits level with the education department; Central Coast Council at 22 outranks the Department of State Growth at 18.
For a supplier that means Tasmania rewards breadth over relationships more than its size would suggest. Seventy-five organisations publish here, and knowing three of them well covers under a fifth of the market.
Five councils, four state bodies and Local Buy, alternating. The education department appears twice under two spellings — see the method note.
The same department, twice, and why we left it
Short answer
Tasmania’s education department appears at 25 listings under one spelling and 17 under another. Combined, 42 listings would make it the state’s busiest publisher. We do not merge buyer names.
Fourth and eighth in the ranking above are the same organisation. “Department for Education, Children and Young” published 25 listings and “Department for Education, Children & Young P” published 17. The second is a truncated variant of the first. Together they would total 42 and lead Tasmania comfortably.
Our measurement script never merges buyer names, and this is the visible cost of that rule. The benefit is larger: merging on name similarity is how two genuinely different agencies get combined into one — a “Department of Health” in two states, or a council and its water authority sharing a stem. A ranking that quietly combines those is wrong in a way nobody can see. A ranking that splits one department in two is wrong in a way anyone can see, and we can tell you about it.
The practical reading for a Tasmanian supplier: education is the largest single buying programme in the state, ahead of Launceston City Council, and it publishes under more than one label. If you are watching for its tenders by organisation name, watch for both.
Tasmania buys more signage than IT
Short answer
Sign manufacturing and signwriting is the seventh-largest Tasmanian category at 28 listings from 10 buyers, ahead of information technology at 24. It appears in no other state’s top ten.
The Tasmanian category profile holds one genuine oddity. Sign manufacturing and signwriting accounts for 28 listings from 10 buyers — seventh in the state, and ahead of information technology at 24. In no other Australian jurisdiction does signage come close to the top ten.
Ten buyers publishing 28 signage tenders in a year is close to one every fortnight, in a state of half a million people. For a signwriting or fabrication business, Tasmania is proportionally the strongest market in the country and one where the entire buyer list fits on a single page.
Behind the government tag at 131 listings, the rest of the profile is conventional for a small state: civil engineering at 80 from 28 buyers, council work at 69, construction at 47 and professional services at 39. Civil engineering carrying 28 separate buyers in a market this size is worth noting on its own — it is the broadest buyer base of any Tasmanian category.
A listing can carry more than one category tag, so these sum above 487. Signage at seventh is unique to Tasmania.
Fast councils, slower departments
Short answer
Council-tagged work runs an 18-day median against 25 for government-tagged. Clarence, George Town and Meander Valley councils all sit at 17 days; the Department of Health runs 30.
Tasmania’s state median is 23 days, a day faster than the national figure, with the middle half falling between 20 and 30. Underneath that sits the usual council-versus-department split, and here it is a seven-day gap: council-tagged listings run an 18-day median against 25 for government-tagged.
Three councils tie for the fastest significant clock in the state at 17 days — Clarence City, George Town and Meander Valley. Launceston City Council, the busiest publisher, runs 24. At the other end the Department of Health allows 30 days across 28 listings and TasNetworks 28.
The spread between the fastest and slowest major Tasmanian buyer is thirteen days, the same as Victoria and far narrower than Western Australia’s twenty-two or South Australia’s twenty-seven. Tasmania is a small market but a consistent one.
| Buyer | Listings | Mostly buys | Median window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meander Valley Council | 16 | Council | 17 days |
| Central Coast Council (Tas) | 22 | Construction | 22 days |
| Dept for Education, Children and Young | 25 | Government | 23 days |
| Department of State Growth | 18 | Government | 23 days |
| Kingborough Council | 16 | Civil Engineering | 23 days |
| Launceston City Council | 30 | Civil Engineering | 24 days |
| Local Buy | 28 | Clothing & Textiles | 24 days |
| Hobart City Council | 25 | Facilities Management | 26 days |
| Department of Health | 28 | Government | 30 days |
When Tasmanian work is released
Short answer
July is the busiest month at 62 listings and December the quietest at 27. The state follows the national financial-year shape at about half the amplitude of Victoria’s.
Tasmania tracks the national calendar without the extremes. July peaks at 62 listings, October follows at 56, and September and November both run 47. December falls to 27 and March to 27.
The swing from quietest to busiest is about 2.3 times, between Western Australia at 2.1 and New South Wales at 2.5, and well short of Victoria at 3.1. The pattern is real but the market is small enough — an average of 41 listings a month — that any single month should be read loosely.
What holds is the shape of the year: a soft first quarter, a build from April, a July peak and a sustained spring. For a supplier here that means the same national advice applies, with the reusable half of a bid built in the January-to-March stretch when volume runs in the twenties and thirties.
The eleven complete months of the measurement window, September 2025 to July 2026. August is excluded because the window splits it across both ends. At an average of 41 listings a month, read individual months loosely.
How we measured
The corpus is a Stipple research dataset of 33,064 publicly listed tenders observed on 29 August 2026. This page uses the 487 carrying a Tasmanian region tag and released inside a single 365-day window ending 24 August 2026, the newest release date in the snapshot. A listing offered across several jurisdictions counts once in each.
Buyers are counted under the organisation name exactly as published, and never merged or normalised. That is why Tasmania’s education department appears twice, at 25 and 17 listings — the section above explains the trade-off. Response windows count listings with both a release and a closing date and a gap between 0 and 365 days, the same rule as our national response-times research. Buyer-level medians are shown only where the buyer has at least five measurable listings.
Three limits. This ranks who publishes work, not who wins it: the corpus holds no awards, no suppliers and no contract values. No figure compares one year to another, because year totals in this snapshot reflect archive retention rather than market movement. And at 487 listings this is a small market — category counts in the twenties describe composition rather than precise market size.
Frequently asked questions
How many tenders are published in Tasmania each year?
Our research corpus holds 487 Tasmanian listings released in the twelve months to 24 August 2026, from 75 distinct buyers. It is the second-smallest Australian jurisdiction in the corpus after the ACT.
Who publishes the most tenders in Tasmania?
Launceston City Council leads on the published names with 30 listings. But the state education department appears under two spellings, at 25 and 17, and combined those 42 listings would lead Tasmania. We publish buyer names unmerged and flag cases like this rather than combining them silently.
How long do you get to respond to a Tasmanian tender?
A median of 23 days, with the middle half falling between 20 and 30. Council work is faster at an 18-day median — Clarence, George Town and Meander Valley councils all run 17 — while the Department of Health allows 30.
What does Tasmania buy that other states do not?
Signage. Sign manufacturing and signwriting is the seventh-largest Tasmanian category at 28 listings from 10 buyers, ahead of information technology. It does not appear in the top ten of any other Australian jurisdiction.
Is Tasmania dominated by a few big buyers?
Less than anywhere else in Australia. No buyer holds more than about 6 per cent of the market, and the top ten — five councils, four state bodies and Local Buy — account for roughly 45 per cent between them. Western Australia concentrates 10.5 per cent in a single department.
Sources and further reading
- 01Stipple tender search — the live corpus this research feeds
- 02Stipple tender source registry — every source, its access and its latest run
Educational guidance, not a forensic certification. Detection technologies and standards change; review material decisions against current evidence.