UK Public-Sector Digital Landscape
A sector-by-sector view of where the UK public sector spends its digital money, where that spend creates dependency on a small number of vendors, and where giving sectors back control of their tools is realistic. It is a broad overview written for the CIC team and does not list planned projects.
The suppliers, products and customers behind this survey are in the landscape database, which can be searched and filtered by sector, supplier, customer and spend. The graph shows how they connect.
What this is for
The CIC’s working thesis is that public bodies should own the software their staff use. The expected benefits are software that can be changed to fit how staff work, lower cost over the life of a system, and contract terms that are not set solely by a supplier. The survey tests that thesis against UK evidence.
It records where a sector has a realistic opportunity to take back control of its software, and where current arrangements work well enough that CIC effort is better spent elsewhere. It also lists areas where software ownership is not the relevant question (defence weapons platforms, signals intelligence, safety-of-life real-time systems).
The survey is structured around three layers:
- Sector chapters. One per major public-sector service area. Each describes the sector, its dominant systems and vendors, where the lock-in is, and where replacement is realistic.
- Cross-cutting analyses. Patterns that recur across sectors: the eight horizontal layers, the dominant vendor footprint, the recognisable lock-in mechanisms, and the international precedents.
- Opportunities. A consolidated, ranked view of where the strongest CIC-aligned interventions are, with sequencing.
Read the methodology first if you want to understand how systems are graded and what the confidence ratings mean.
Sectors
Each sector chapter follows the same template: overview, total digital spend, dominant systems, where the money goes, lock-in and concentration, replaceability assessment, the human dimension, what to leave alone, and a sector-specific opportunity summary.
Health and care
NHS primary, secondary, community, mental health, national infrastructure, and adult and children’s social care.
Local government
Revenues and benefits, planning, housing, waste, ERP, customer contact, document management, GIS and asset management.
Central government & civic services
GOV.UK, identity, cross-departmental ERP, HMRC, DWP, registry agencies, courts.
Defence
Enterprise IT and a small in-scope subset of programme systems. Most operational defence is out of scope.
Policing & home affairs
National policing systems, force-level command-and-control, body-worn video, ANPR, immigration and borders.
Fire and rescue
Mobilising systems, station and asset management.
Justice and corrections
HMCTS Common Platform, HMPPS prison systems, probation systems.
Education
Schools MIS, higher education student systems, DfE national systems.
Transport
Network Rail, rail operators, TfL and regional transport authorities, smart ticketing.
Housing associations & devolved bodies
Housing association core systems and the systems specific to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Cross-cutting analyses
Patterns that recur across sectors. A change to one of these affects several sectors at once.
The eight horizontal layers
The platforms that cross every sector: identity, case management, scheduling, document management, payments, communications, geospatial, and reporting.
Vendor concentration map
How a small number of suppliers (Capita, Civica, Oracle, Microsoft, NEC, Idox, Optum, Palantir, AWS) touch most of public-sector digital spend.
Lock-in pattern catalogue
The recognisable mechanisms: data formats, accreditation, integration monopolies, asymmetric switching costs, acquisitions, skills lock-in.
The shared-platform thesis
What happens if the eight horizontal layers were built once as public infrastructure and consumed by all sectors.
International comparisons
Estonia (X-Road), France (DINUM, SILL), Germany (Sovereign Tech Fund), Denmark, and the EU OSPO movement: what works, what does not, and what transfers.
Counter-arguments
Cases where publicly owned open-source replacement is not the best option, the record of past UK government IT programmes, and the risks the CIC must address.
Opportunities
The consolidated, cross-sector view of where the strongest CIC interventions are. Tier 1 is the small set of replacements with the strongest combined case: high spend, high lock-in, mature open alternatives or tractable build, modest regulatory complexity, clear human-dimension benefit. Tier 2 is viable but harder. Tier 3 is hands-off.
Read the opportunities and sequencing →
This is a working document. Sector chapters are written sequentially and revised as the team’s understanding develops. Confidence ratings are visible inline next to figures. Where evidence is weak, the text says so.