Building a shared baseline for digital maturity across higher education

This project delivers a sector-wide digital maturity assessment for higher education. It is designed to help institutions understand how effectively digital capabilities enable them to deliver their strategic priorities, now and in the years ahead.

The assessment supports senior leaders to take a more evidence-based approach to digital transformation. It aligns with the Universities UK (UUK) Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce report and responds directly to its recommendation for the sector to baseline digital and data maturity.

By taking part, you will help shape a shared view of digital maturity across higher education and contribute to insights that will inform future Jisc support and guidance.

The problem

Universities are operating in a highly challenging environment. You may be managing rising costs, constrained funding and ageing systems, while responding to fast‑moving developments such as generative AI.

At the same time, expectations around digital teaching, research, services and the student experience continue to grow. Many institutions are investing in digital transformation, but without a common baseline it can be hard to identify priorities, track progress or learn from others.

This project addresses that gap by offering a practical, consistent way to assess digital maturity and benchmark it against anonymised sector data.

What the assessment covers

The online digital maturity assessment is designed for executive decision-making. It draws on our digital transformation framework and digital maturity model for higher education, which were co-created with the higher education sector.

It includes 24 carefully selected questions covering:

• Leadership and organisational culture
• Digital and AI capability and capacity
• Infrastructure and technical legacy
• Data and knowledge management
• Education, research and the wider student experience
• Partnerships, sustainability and inclusion

To support meaningful discussion, the assessment uses five maturity levels, reflecting the range of maturity currently seen across the sector.

Our approach

Phase one: assessment and participation

The assessment is open throughout May and June 2026 and can be completed online at your own pace.

We recommend completing it collaboratively, for example through a leadership meeting or workshop involving senior leads for education, research and professional services. You can also nominate a lead to gather input from colleagues and complete it on your behalf.

When you complete the assessment, you will receive a downloadable summary of your results to support reflection and discussion.

Phase two: analysis and insight

We will analyse anonymised responses to identify sector‑level trends, strengths, risks and barriers to progress.

From autumn 2026, you will be able to access anonymised benchmarking data through the explore my data platform. We will also publish a sector briefing paper sharing key insights from the project.