Planning

Digital & IT Opportunities at The National Archives

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

This public procurement record has 1 release in its history.

Planning

20 Jun 2025 at 10:21

Summary of the contracting process

The procurement process is currently in the planning stage and is being led by The National Archives, a public authority within the central government of the United Kingdom. The forthcoming tender titled "Digital & IT Opportunities at The National Archives" is focused on IT services, such as consulting, software development, and internet support, within the United Kingdom, particularly in regions UKI and UKJ. Key dates include an information event on 25 July 2025 at The National Archives in Richmond. Interested parties should register by emailing procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk by 11 July 2025. The procurement method anticipates future opportunities to be announced no earlier than the 2026/27 financial year, with the planned contract period spanning from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2029.

This tender presents substantial opportunities for businesses, particularly those experienced in IT services such as development and support, cloud infrastructure, and digital preservation systems. It caters to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and seeks external contractors capable of handling complex IT operations, enhancing user experience, and applying cutting-edge technologies like AI and NLP. Companies adept in technologies such as HTML-5, Java, and Drupal, among others, will find this opportunity conducive for business growth through direct involvement with The National Archives’ vital digital projects, including the widely-used legislation.gov.uk Platform and the innovative Lawmaker service.

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Notice Title

Digital & IT Opportunities at The National Archives

Notice Description

Join us on 25 July 2025 from 10am- 2pm at The National Archives to find out about our digital procurement opportunities, meet the digital service teams, and to learn about the skills and expertise we're looking for to help us deliver our world-leading digital services. There will be coffee on arrival, formal presentations, lunch and breakout sessions where you can informally chat to representatives of the digital services provided by The National Archives. You can join the formal presentations online if you cannot attend in person - just let us know. Find out about the following services in particular: Lawmaker Lawmaker is a service enabling users to draft and manage secondary and primary legislation (including the parliamentary amendment process). It is XML-based and accessed via the browser. Lawmaker is delivered by The National Archives to users in the UK Government, UK Parliament, Scottish government, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive. The National Archives uses external contractors to help deliver the Lawmaker service including through maintaining infrastructure and software, providing user support, ensuring security, developing new features and extending the service to new use cases. At this point we anticipate this opportunity going out to procurement in the 2026/27 financial year. Legislation services The National Archives is responsible for providing the legislation.gov.uk Platform which: makes both enacted and revised legislation available on the web for the public to access and use, and provides legislation as open data for data users to include in their own products and services. We use external contractors to manage the maintenance and development of this Platform, which includes the legislation.gov.uk website, a research website, the legislation.gov.uk editorial system, and the legislation.gov.uk publishing system. We are looking for suppliers with the technical skills and experience to maintain and continuously develop the legislation.gov.uk Platform to ensure it is accessible, robust and performant. Statutory responsibilities for the official publication of all UK legislation are managed through a separate publishing concessionary contract. We provide the concessionaire with access to the legislation.gov.uk publishing system so that they can publish legislation both online and in print. At this point we anticipate this opportunity going out to procurement in the 2026/27 financial year. Digital Services External suppliers play a critical role in enabling the successful delivery of our wide portfolio of digital services. In the coming years we will continue to invest in, among other things, securing and expanding our digital archive, developing our catalogue management and digital preservation systems, and growing the Find Case Law service. IT Operations The National Archive's IT Operations department is responsible for the provision and support of Corporate IT services and systems. Some technologies and key areas of expertise that we're interested in User research Interaction and content design Accessibility Front end development DevOps Cloud infrastructure architecture, management and financial optimisation Service management and security Data analysis and visualisation Generative AI and LLMs NLP and text processing Semantic technologies, linked data and knowledge graphs Akoma Ntoso/LegalDocML (OASIS standard for legislative and legal documents) XML, X-Query, XSLT, RDF and SPARQL HTML-5, JSON, Java, Javascript, CSS RESTful APIs, XML and noSQL databases, Drupal Register your interest To register, please email procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk by midday on 11 July 2025, giving the name of your organisation, and the names and roles of proposed attendees. Please state if you want to attend online (presentations only).

Publication & Lifecycle

Open Contracting ID
ocds-h6vhtk-0550bc
Publication Source
Find A Tender Service
Latest Notice
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/033999-2025
Current Stage
Planning
All Stages
Planning

Procurement Classification

Notice Type
UK1 - Pipeline Notice
Procurement Type
Standard
Procurement Category
Services
Procurement Method
Not Specified
Procurement Method Details
Not specified
Tender Suitability
SME
Awardee Scale
Not specified

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

CPV Divisions

72 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support


CPV Codes

72000000 - IT services: consulting, software development, Internet and support

Notice Value(s)

Tender Value
Not specified
Lots Value
Not specified
Awards Value
Not specified
Contracts Value
Not specified

Notice Dates

Publication Date
20 Jun 20258 months ago
Submission Deadline
Not specified
Future Notice Date
1 Apr 20262 months to go
Award Date
Not specified
Contract Period
1 Jan 2027 - 31 Dec 2029 3-4 years
Recurrence
Not specified

Notice Status

Tender Status
Planned
Lots Status
Planned
Awards Status
Not Specified
Contracts Status
Not Specified

Contracting Authority (Buyer)

Main Buyer
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Contact Name
Not specified
Contact Email
procurement@nationalarchives.gov.uk
Contact Phone
Not specified

Buyer Location

Locality
RICHMOND
Postcode
TW9 4DU
Post Town
Twickenham
Country
England

Major Region (ITL 1)
TLI London
Basic Region (ITL 2)
TLI7 Outer London - West and North West
Small Region (ITL 3)
TLI75 Hounslow and Richmond upon Thames
Delivery Location
TLI London, TLJ South East (England)

Local Authority
Richmond upon Thames
Electoral Ward
Kew
Westminster Constituency
Richmond Park

Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)

View full OCDS Record for this contracting process

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The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) is a framework designed to increase transparency and access to public procurement data in the public sector. It is widely used by governments and organisations worldwide to report on procurement processes and contracts.

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