Tender

Ask AI about this notice

Summarise, research or assess it with AI

View Markdown

Share this notice

Send this contract to a colleague

ITT (CF) - Digital Preservation System - UID 226M

Historic England

This public procurement record has 4 releases in its history.

Tender

09 Oct 2026 at 12:36

UK4 - Tender Notice
PlanningUpdate

29 Jul 2026 at 15:39

UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice
PlanningUpdate

27 Jul 2026 at 16:31

UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice
Planning

27 Jul 2026 at 16:05

UK2 - Preliminary Market Engagement Notice
Summary of the contracting process

Historic England is seeking a full software-as-a-service digital preservation system to manage and preserve its existing digital archive and new datasets created by its teams. The service must provide preservation in line with the OAIS reference model and ISO 14721, with secure hosting for archive content. The archive includes photographic and archival material, as well as complex datasets such as 3D models, point-cloud, CAD, moving-image and survey data. The system is intended to support the integrity, authenticity, storage, discovery and controlled access of digital content and metadata, and must work with Historic England’s wider digital systems. Historic England is the buyer; delivery is for its archive operation in England. This is an information technology and digital archiving service (CPV 48329000).

Historic England invited offers through an open competitive flexible procedure, with a two-stage process: an invitation to tender evaluated on quality and price, followed by an optional final assurance or demonstration meeting with the highest-scoring supplier. The tender has reached the invitation-to-tender stage. Questions were due by 28 October 2026 at 17:00, and offers by 4 November 2026 at 09:30. The stated contract period runs from 4 January 2027 to 3 January 2030, with renewal options described as five periods of 12 months and a maximum extent to 3 January 2035. The estimated value is £1,160,000 excluding VAT (£1,392,000 including VAT). Quality carries 75% of the evaluation weighting and price 25%.

This requirement is aimed at suppliers able to provide and support a full SaaS digital preservation platform, rather than a basic file store or access system. Strong candidates will have experience managing large, growing archives and preserving diverse digital material, including complex datasets, while maintaining content integrity and authenticity and capturing associated metadata. The service needs secure hosting, data replication and management, UK-based data sovereignty, controlled discovery and access, and reporting that helps manage preservation risks. Suppliers should be able to interoperate with collections-management, digital-asset-management and online resource systems, and align with recognised digital preservation standards and practice. Historic England also seeks training and support, a credible route to transfer content to other systems without vendor lock-in, and capacity to handle increasing volumes of born-digital and digitised material. SMEs are considered suitable.

How relevant is this notice?

Notice Information

Notice Title

ITT (CF) - Digital Preservation System - UID 226M

Notice Description

Historic England wishes to procure a full SaaS digital preservation system to enable the care of Historic England's existing digital archive content, and to facilitate long-term care of data sets which are being created by Historic England teams, and which do not currently form part of the Digital Archive. The requirement is for a system which provides full digital preservation capabilities in line with the OAIS reference model, ISO14721. The solution must include data hosting of the content stored in the Digital Archive in a cyber-secure environment as set out in the technical specification which forms part of this procurement pack. Full details of this project can be found in the ITT.

Planning Information

Historic England is undertaking Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) to improve its understanding of the Digital Preservation System (DPS) marketplace and inform future procurement requirements. The system will support the ingestion, storage, integrity management, and ongoing preservation of high-value digital assets, including photographic and archival material, ensuring compliance with relevant standards and best practice for digital preservation. The engagement is intended to: • Increase understanding of available DPS solutions. • Identify common and differentiating capabilities. • Understand implementation approaches. • Explore pricing and support models. • Inform future procurement requirements. This exercise is not a procurement and is not intended to identify a preferred supplier. The procurement will be conducted via a formal tender process following the finalisation of requirements. This pre-market engagement aims to better understand market capabilities and inform the development of clear, proportionate, and achievable requirements. We have identified five suppliers who we will be engaging with to ensure a proportionate market assessment based on the following: • Demonstrable experience in digital preservation systems, particularly within archival, cultural heritage, or research sectors • Ability to support UK public sector requirements, including data protection and security expectations • Experience of delivering cloud-based or hybrid preservation solutions • Representation of a range of supplier types (e.g. SME, open-source providers, and enterprise platforms) We are unable to invite more suppliers to this process, due to the level of staff time that we could allocate to reviewing the information received. We welcome all responses to the Invitation To Tender stage which will be advertised later this year. Suppliers identified will be asked to do the following: 1. Provide written responses to the questions contained within this document 2. Deliver a remote system demonstration Please see the background that will be provided to the suppliers, all information provided will be included in the Invitation To Tender once we begin our competitive procurement procedure: Historic England Context Historic England (HE) (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the UK Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS). It is tasked with protecting the historic environment of England and advising central and local government on historic environment matters. The Historic England Archive (the Archive) is the national archive of the historic environment in England. It holds over 15 million items and is one of the largest collections in the UK. From early photography from the 1850s to contemporary collections, we hold major archive collections of national importance, caring for them now and for future generations. Content is mostly photographic, but also includes large collections of drawings, plans and related documents covering archaeology, architecture, social and local history. The Archive supports and delivers on an important part of our organisational mission to champion and protect the historic environment. It holds these records as part of the wider Archive under the powers given to the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (Historic England) under the National Heritage Act 1983 and has been a Place of Deposit for public records under s.4(1) of the Public Records Act (1958) since 1995. The Archive team is responsible for digital preservation at HE and will own the outcome of the proposed procurement. We operate with the following standards: OAIS, PREMIS, Dublin Core, ISAD(G). Our digital archive contains 72TB of born digital data and further digitised material, giving a total data pool size of 100TB. This is growing at a rapid and increasing pace. Over the past few years expansion has been: Year Expansion of born digital Expansion of digitised 2023 5.8TB 2.45 TB 2024 7.47TB 1.54TB 2025 8.93TB 0.66 TB 2026 (projected) 9TB 1.7TB We expect this trend to continue, with increasing quantities of born digital material due to increased size of files from digital cameras and the requirement to care for an increased range of data, including 3-D data, CAD moving image and survey data. The new DPS will need to have the ability to interoperate with the following systems: • Collections management system – currently using Adlib, but with plans to move to another system in the future, after the DPS is in place. • Internal Historic England DAMS system (ResourceSpace). • Our online resources, see https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/ The main limitations to our current setup, which we are seeking to solve are as follows: • The digital archive is managed in a DAMS system (Portfolio) which does not provide full digital preservation of assets. The system has been fulfilling the role of both digital archive and access system. • Content is stored in instant on-premise access storage which has a higher financial cost and a greater carbon footprint. • Disproportionate time is spent on manual ingest and data management processes. • Rates of deposit are rising rapidly for both born-digital and digitised content and we require a secure system which can process and safely store content at scale. • The need to be able to care for large complex datasets, including point cloud data and 3D models, which should be kept as part of HE’s archive are not currently in archive storage. The successful reaccreditation of the Archive in 2025 highlighted the need to improve digital preservation provision. The rate of growth and need for more diverse storage architecture has made the introduction of a more robust digital preservation solution a high priority. Through undertaking a procurement process for a digital preservation system we expect to achieve: • Authenticity of content through recording and managing the integrity and authenticity of all digital archive data and metadata to recognised standards. • A comprehensive data model that enables the structure of digital objects to be captured with persistent identifiers on ingest and accurately represented over time as they are managed and preserved. • The ability to assess the characteristics of ingested digital content and record them in associated metadata. • Storage replication and management facilities, including maintenance of data sovereignty on UK servers. • Controlled discovery of, and access to, digital content and metadata. • A system that mitigates preservation risks and has a range of reporting capabilities. • A clear exit strategy to other systems, without vendor lock in. • A relationship with the vendor that includes training and support suitable to our needs. • A system that is compatible with the wider Historic England digital estate.

Notice Details

Publication & Lifecycle

Open Contracting ID
ocds-h6vhtk-06d47e
Publication Source
Find A Tender Service
Latest Notice
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/095640-2026
Current Stage
Tender
All Stages
Planning, Tender

Procurement Classification

Notice Type
UK4 - Tender Notice
Procurement Type
Standard
Procurement Category
Services
Procurement Method
Open
Procurement Method Details
Competitive flexible procedure
Tender Suitability
SME
Awardee Scale
Not specified

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

CPV Divisions

48 - Software package and information systems

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

CPV Codes

48329000 - Imaging and archiving system

48613000 - Electronic data management (EDM)

48810000 - Information systems

72222300 - Information technology services

Notice Value(s)

Tender Value
£1,160,000 £1M-£10M
Lots Value
£1,160,000 £1M-£10M
Awards Value
Not specified
Contracts Value
Not specified

Notice Dates

Publication Date
9 Oct 20263 days ago
Submission Deadline
4 Nov 20263 weeks to go
Future Notice Date
Not specified
Award Date
Not specified
Contract Period
4 Jan 2027 - 3 Jan 2030 3-4 years
Recurrence
Not specified

Notice Status

Tender Status
Active
Lots Status
Active
Awards Status
Not Specified
Contracts Status
Not Specified

Buyer & Supplier

Contracting Authority (Buyer)

Main Buyer
Historic England
Contact Name
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Email
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →
Contact Phone
Available with D3 Tenders Premium →

Buyer Location

Locality
SWINDON
Postcode
SN2 2EH
Postcode Area
Swindon
Country
England
Major Region (ITL 1)
TLK South West (England)
Basic Region (ITL 2)
TLK7 Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
Small Region (ITL 3)
TLK71 Swindon
Delivery Location
Not specified
Local Authority
Swindon
Electoral Ward
Mannington and Western
Westminster Constituency
Swindon South

Further Information

Notice Documents

Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS)

View full OCDS Record for this contracting process

JSON Markdown

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.

Loading OCDS record...