---
title: "Social Mobility Commission - State of the Nation 2027"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Tender"
buyer: "SOCIAL MOBILITY COMMISSION"
published: "2026-06-15"
---

# Social Mobility Commission - State of the Nation 2027

Buyer: SOCIAL MOBILITY COMMISSION  
Current stage: Tender  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb

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## Summary

The Social Mobility Commission, an independent statutory body based in London, is seeking to procure services for the "State of the Nation 2027" report. This tender falls under the social research services industry category and aims to provide analytical support, methodological development, statistical quality assurance, and interpretation for their flagship annual publication assessing social mobility in the UK. The procurement process is currently in the tender stage, with bids to be submitted by 12:00 midday on 19th June 2026. The open competition method, categorised as below threshold, implies that the tender adheres to an inclusive and transparent procurement approach. The contract period is set to commence on 13th July 2026 and may extend potentially until 29th December 2028, allowing possible expansion to include Scotland and Northern Ireland longitudinal resources.

This tender presents an attractive opportunity for businesses specialising in social research services, particularly those with expertise in quantitative analysis and longitudinal data. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and voluntary, community, and social enterprises (VCSEs) are particularly encouraged to apply, promoting diversity among providers. The contract's emphasis on robustness, reproducibility, and innovative analytical approaches is likely to attract businesses with strengths in methodological development and data interpretation. The procurement foresees significant potential for extensions in future analytical roles and geographic analyses, which presents an avenue for growth and collaboration within this pivotal domain of public sector reporting.

## Notice

The Social Mobility Commission (SMC) monitors progress towards improving social mobility in the UK and promotes social mobility in England. It is an independent statutory body. Its annual State of the Nation report is the Commission's main publication on UK-wide progress on social mobility and is laid before Parliament. The Commission is seeking a supplier to provide analytical support, methodological development, statistical quality assurance and interpretation for the 2027 State of the Nation report (with possible extension for the 2028 report). The supplier will work closely with the SMC secretariat. The emphasis of this contract is on robust analysis, reproducibility, interpretation and selected methodological improvements, rather than routine production work where SMC already has established in-house code. The Social Mobility Index provides the framework for State of the Nation. It includes mobility outcomes, intermediate outcomes and drivers of social mobility. The current indicators are available through the SMC State of the Nation data explorer: https://social-mobility.data.gov.uk/ Please see more details in the attached document of the tendering requirements. Bidders must submit their Bids before 12:00 midday on 19th June 2026. All Bids must be submitted to contact@socialmobilitycommission.gov.uk. Failure to return Bids by the time and due date or in the required format may disqualify Bidders from consideration.

### Lot Information

Lot 1

Renewal: If the contract is extended, it will be extended to 29th December 2028, with an increased cost of PS50,000 (ex VAT). If extended, the strategic priorities for 2028 are: - Support the transition to the transformed Labour Force Survey (tLFS), including changes to variable names, weights, quality, discontinuities and comparability over time. - Investigate equivalent longitudinal resources for Scotland and Northern Ireland if access and feasibility allow. - Deliver a distinct topic of interest for the 2028 report. Explanatory geographical analysis may be considered as an example topic, subject to SMC priorities, feasibility, budget and timetable. - Continue the emphasis on reproducible R code, plain-English technical documentation, accessible Excel outputs and GitHub-based code sharing. The extra deliverables, if extended, would be the following: Deliverable 1: 2028 tLFS transition and comparability plan - 30 September 2027 - A review of changes arising from the transition from LFS to tLFS, including variable names, weights, data quality, breaks in series and implications for comparability over time. - Advice on whether and how existing LFS-based indicators should be updated, bridged, caveated or temporarily paused. - Updated or new code where required to adapt existing analysis to tLFS variables and weights. - A plain-English note for use in the report explaining any discontinuities or limitations in the time series. Deliverable 2: 2028 feasibility review: Scotland and Northern Ireland longitudinal resources - 30 September 2027 - A short feasibility review of equivalent or complementary longitudinal resources for Scotland and Northern Ireland. - Advice on access routes, governance requirements, coverage, comparability and analytical value for State of the Nation. - A recommendation on whether any such resource should be used in the 2028 report, deferred to a later year, or treated as unsuitable for the current purpose. Deliverable 3: 2028 topic of interest - 30 September 2027 - A distinct analytical contribution for the 2028 report, to be agreed with SMC during the contract. - The topic may include explanatory geographical analysis, for example using Census 2001, 2011 and 2021 to relate occupational-structure change to education, inactivity, unemployment, GVA and other local conditions. This is included as an example option, not as a firm requirement. - For any agreed topic, the supplier should provide a scoped analysis plan, analysis or methodological advice as agreed, QA, interpretation and reproducible documentation. - If the topic is not feasible within the contract timetable or budget, the supplier should provide a short rationale and recommend a narrower alternative. Deliverable 4: 2028 reproducibility, accessibility and publication support pack - 31 July 2028 - Quality-assured analytical outputs for new work conducted for the 2028 report. - Accessible Excel files containing the underlying data for charts and tables used in the report or data explorer, using an SMC-supplied template where provided. - Technical documentation sufficient for SMC analysts to rerun or audit the analysis. - Support for checking the final report, data explorer and press materials so that the statistics are interpreted accurately. Deliverable 5: Final handover - 29 December 2028 - Complete, documented code and outputs for all new analysis conducted under the contract. - A final limitations and lessons-learned note, including recommendations for the 2029 State of the Nation analytical cycle. - A handover meeting with SMC analysts to walk through code, outputs, outstanding caveats and any recommended next steps.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/056053-2026 |
| Notice type | UK4 - Tender Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Open |
| Procurement method details | Below threshold - open competition |
| Tender suitability | SME, VCSE |
| Awardee scale | Not specified |
| All stages | Tender |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 15 Jun 2026 |
| Submission deadline | 19 Jun 2026 |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | Not specified |
| Contract period | 12 Jul 2026 - 31 Jul 2027 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | £60,000 |
| Lots value | £60,000 |
| Awards value | Not specified |
| Contracts value | Not specified |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Active |
| Lots status | Active |
| Awards status | Not specified |
| Contracts status | Not specified |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | SOCIAL MOBILITY COMMISSION |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | South West London |
| Postcode | SW1A 2HQ |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | Westminster |
| Electoral ward | St James's |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 79 - Business services: law, marketing, consulting, recruitment, printing and security

### Codes

- 79315000 - Social research services

## Release History

- 15 Jun 2026 at 09:35 - TenderUpdate - UK4 - Tender Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/056053-2026
- 10 Jun 2026 at 13:56 - TenderUpdate - UK4 - Tender Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/054806-2026
- 26 May 2026 at 10:25 - Tender - UK4 - Tender Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/048550-2026

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/056053-2026
  15th June 2026 - Tender notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/054806-2026
  10th June 2026 - Tender notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/048550-2026
  26th May 2026 - Tender notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/A-16685
  Please review this document for additional information around the tender notice.
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/A-17556
  Clarification questions as of 10/06/2026
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/A-17749
  Clarification questions as of 15/06/2026

## Notice URLs

- https://social-mobility.data.gov.uk/
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-06a2fb.json.