Official UK procurement notice
UHB Network Support Services
Authority: University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionUniversity Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) is initiating a preliminary market engagement exercise in preparation for a formal procurement of Network Support Services. UHB is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England, operating multiple hospital sites including Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Heartlands Hospital, Good Hope Hospital, and Solihull Hospital, alongside community and specialist clinics.
The Trust seeks to engage with suppliers capable of delivering a comprehensive, secure, and future-ready network infrastructure service that supports clinical operations, research, and enterprise IT across its estate.
The future contract will encompass the management, support, and strategic development of the following:
- Core Network (Cisco): High-availability backbone designed to vendor best practice and resilient architecture
- Datacentre Network (Cisco): Supporting mission-critical clinical and Trust systems with high throughput and disaster recovery capability
- Distribution Layer (Cisco): Scalable and resilient aggregation for Trust and campus connectivity.
- Access Layer (Cisco, Extreme): Managed wired connectivity across the Trust estate, providing reliable access for clinical and administrative users
- Wi-Fi Infrastructure (Cisco & Extreme): High-density wireless coverage to support mobile devices, laptops, clinical equipment, and guest access
- Network Access Control (Forescout): Policy-based access control, device profiling, and integration with security monitoring solutions
- Firewall Services (Fortigate): Perimeter and internal segmentation firewalls, configured for high availability and compliant with Trust, NHS, and NCSC requirements
- VPN Services (FortiClient & FortiAuthenticator): Secure remote access, MFA integration, and scalability to support hybrid working
- Wide Area Network (WAN): Site-to-site connectivity across hospitals, community services, and cloud providers, with resilience, bandwidth optimisation, and QoS management
- Emerging Technologies (e.g., GPON, SD-WAN): Capability to adopt and support evolving network technologies
Additional requirements include:
- Monitoring, Management, and Reporting Tools: Centralised NOC operations, SLA reporting, capacity planning, and integration with Trust monitoring systems
- Future-Proofing and Scalability: Cloud readiness, multi-vendor integration, and support for NHS interoperability standards
- Cyber Security and Compliance: Cyber resilience, vulnerability management, and compliance with NHS Digital, NCSC, and ISO27001
- Training and Knowledge Transfer: Provision of skills uplift and vendor certification to UHB IT staff
- Lifecycle Management: Planning and execution of hardware refreshes, software updates, and end-of-life transitions
CPV: Data network management 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 University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust buys Data-processing services (CPV 7231), and who usually turns up
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust’s own published record, next to the published market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are kept out: they attract a different number of bids. Whole-market view: Data-processing services (CPV 7231) →
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.
Here, local means registered in West Midlands (authority’s region).
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
No winner locations published for this authority. Local means a registered address in West Midlands.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the deadline to the first award notice, on competitions that published both dates.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards were announced within 68 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.
The market share is a minimum: 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 bid20% / 17%
2–310% / 31%
4–640% / 34%
7+30% / 17%
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 estimate60%
Within ±2%30%
Above estimate10%
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 7231Estimate not published
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 76 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid7%
2–325%
4–632%
7+37%
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
- 23 Oct 2025, 09:04 BST
- Last source update
- 23 Oct 2025, 09:04 BST
- Authority reference
C396618- FTS notice number
2025/S 000-067662- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-05d213Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
23 Oct 2025 → 1 Jan 2027 · 3 dates- Planning notice published362 days ago23 Oct 2025, 09:04 BST
- Market engagement355 days ago29 Oct 2025, 23:59 GMT
Potential suppliers are requested to respond to the requirements, as detailed in the Briefing Document UHB Network Support Sevices with confirmation of ability to meet the requirement, a description of how their product meets the requirement.
Procurement Process
The procurement process will be subject to further approvals and this Pre-Market Engagement Exercise will help form the tender process so currently, the route to market is unknown.
Suppliers wishing to participate in this market engagement exercise and express an interest in this requirement should respond to the questionnaire via the online form on the Health Family Single eCommercial System Portal (Atamis) by 13:00 on Wednesday 29th October 2025.
health-family.force.com/s/Welcome ↗
Please search for C396618
To View documents please register interest and then navigate "My Proposals and quotes"
- Today20 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 73 days1 Jan 2027
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published23 Oct 2025, 09:04 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