Official UK procurement notice
Home Office Biometric Strategic Central Bureau Platform Preliminary Market Engagement Event
Authority: Home Office (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionMarket Engagement: Strategic Central and Bureau Platform (SCBP) procurement
The Home Office is seeking to engage with potential suppliers ahead of two potential future procurements covering the support, development, transition and ongoing modernisation of the Strategic Central and Bureau Platform and associated services.
SCBP is a critical Home Office digital capability that underpins a range of biometric, identity, and law enforcement systems, supporting operational decision making across immigration, borders, policing and wider law enforcement activity. SCBP plays a key role in enabling the Home Office and its partners to protect the public, prevent and detect criminality, and safeguard vulnerable individuals, while ensuring appropriate controls over data privacy, security and access.
SCBP is a key component of the Home Office Biometrics landscape which provides a shared, resilient capability to host and support multiple biometric and identity related services, enabling the secure processing, storage and exchange of sensitive data. It supports both live operational services and analytical capabilities, operating at national scale and across multiple delivery partners, technologies and hosting arrangements.
The Home Office has recently transitioned much of the technology onto more modern and widely adopted technology stacks, potentially opening up more of the required support and development functions to suppliers with broader expertise and presenting greater opportunities for a wider range of suppliers to participate.
As a result the Home Office is currently considering its future commercial and delivery approach for SCBP including potential disaggregation and is keen to engage early with the market to test assumptions, gather supplier insight, and inform the development of its procurement strategy, scope and delivery model.
Indicative Scope
The potential supplier(s) may be required to provide elements relating to the SCBP platform and associated services, which may include (but are not limited to):
- Biometric experience
- Platform hosting and infrastructure services
- Application and platform engineering and support services
- Security, resilience and availability services
- Integration with dependent Home Office and third party systems
- Data management, environment management and tooling
- Transition, onboarding and knowledge transfer services
- Support for live service operations and continuous improvement
- Transformation services
The precise scope, delivery model and commercial structure are subject to further development and will be informed by this and subsequent market engagement activity. All dates and values described within this notice refer to the entirety of scope, which may potentially result in more than one procurement and potential contracts.
Note given the potential disaggregation approach, interested suppliers may not be required to provide all of the scope described above.
The estimated value included in this notice is based on current annual charges and represents an indicative upper bound only. A significant proportion of the cost relates to services that are currently under consideration for alternative delivery models, including potential insourcing or partial insourcing. As a result, the Authority has material uncertainty over the final scope, structure and cost of any future procurement(s).
This market engagement may result in one or more procurements and, if taken forward, may lead to contracts with differing lengths and values materially lower than or otherwise different from the indicative figure stated. Final scope, structure and value will be determined following further analysis and engagement and will be confirmed through any future procurement notice(s).
CPV: Computer-related services · Data-processing services · Internet services · Programming services of application software · Software implementation services · Software programming and consultancy services · System and support services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Home Office buys Programming services of packaged software products (CPV 7221), and who usually turns up
Home Office’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Programming services of packaged software products (CPV 7221) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 49 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid11% / 4%
2–337% / 33%
4–641% / 33%
7+11% / 30%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate46% / 47%
Within ±2%34% / 33%
Above estimate20% / 19%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 72Published estimate£247m
This lot lists more than one class in CPV 72. The comparison uses that group.
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 789 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid12%
2–328%
4–628%
7+32%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 30 Apr 2026, 09:38 BST
- Last source update
- 30 Apr 2026, 09:38 BST
- Authority reference
20517- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-039639- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-068eceFind a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
30 Apr 2026 → 1 Oct 2027 · 4 dates- Planning notice published178 days ago30 Apr 2026, 09:38 BST
- Today25 Oct 2026
- Market engagementin 66 days30 Dec 2026, 23:59 GMT
A Preliminary Market Engagement Notice is being issued by the Home Office (the Authority) to notify the market of a Market Engagement Event seeking further views and feedback in relation to potential future procurement or procurements covering the support, development, transition and ongoing modernisation of the Strategic Central and Bureau Platform and associated services.
It is anticipated that this engagement may be used to inform one or more future procurement exercises related to the scope, however this Market Engagement does not formally signify the beginning of any procurement exercise by the Authority, nor does it constitute a commitment by the Authority to undertake a procurement. In the event that the Authority decides to formally commence a procurement or procurements pursuant to this Market Engagement, then a separate Tender Notice(s) will be published. Any contract timelines and costs described within this notice are based upon the entirety of scope, with the exact scope of any procurement(s) to be be developed as part of this engagement.
Accordingly, the Authority will be holding a Market Engagement event on Friday 15th May 2026 at Tech UKs premises 10 St Bride Street, London, EC4A 4AD, between 2pm and 4pm and on line via MS Teams
Potential Suppliers who wish to attend this event must fully register with Tech UK and sign a Non Disclosure Agreement, no later than 12:00pm (Noon) on the 13 May
Firstly: To reserve a place at the event itself, please follow the following link www.techuk.org ↗
Secondly to sign the NDA, Visit the Home Office eSourcing Portal available at:
Search for: PQQ event pqq_793
As part of their registration, potential suppliers must read the instructions available in the Home Office eSourcing event pqq_793, and:
- Download and execute the NDA available within eSourcing event pqq_793
- Provide the name and address of their organisation.
- Provide full name(s) of up to a maximum of two designated attendees.
- Provide their position(s) in the organisation.
- Provide Email and telephone contact details.
Please note that admittance to the Market Engagement Event shall be:
- Strictly limited to two representatives per organisation
- Subject to agreement and full execution of Home Office NDA in accordance with the instructions provided within the Home Office eSourcing event pqq_ 793
- In Person attendance will be provided on a first come first served basis, in the event of the event being over subscribed then potential suppliers will still be able to use the on line option.
For potential suppliers who successfully register for this event (including a valid NDA), there will also be an opportunity to review and provide feedback on the event via a survey and a limited number of 121 meetings at a future date available on a first come first served basis.
- Tender notice expectedin 75 days8 Jan 2027, 23:59 GMT
- Contract startsin 340 days1 Oct 2027, 00:00 BST
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published30 Apr 2026, 09:38 BSTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender