Working together on digital solutions is the sector’s strongest move
Rising software costs, shifting licensing models and accelerating digital change mean collective negotiation is now essential to securing fair, sustainable digital agreements for UK education and research.
Spend any time with leaders in education and research, and a familiar story emerges. Financial pressures are intensifying further amid geopolitical uncertainty, student and learner expectations are rising, and meanwhile digital systems have moved from the margins to the core of education delivery, research capability and operational resilience.
The digital marketplace, however, is moving faster than institutions can realistically keep up with. Rising software costs are being compounded by AI consumption pricing models, vendor consolidation, unexpected licensing changes, and implementation work that now regularly outweighs the cost of the product, adding further pressure to already stretched teams.
Acting alone does not provide the leverage needed to shape fair and sustainable digital agreements for all.
The Universities UK (UUK) Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce captured this moment clearly in its Towards a new era of collaboration report earlier this year, setting out a roadmap for universities and colleges to make better use of shared services, pool expertise and align effort. One of its strongest recommendations – and one now echoed widely across tertiary education – is the need to leverage the sector’s collective buying power through coordinated negotiation and licensing of the digital systems we all depend on. This is where sector-powered licensing, delivered through shared models and aligned governance, plays a central role.
A shared service model for licensing and negotiation
We already know collaboration works. Our shared licensing service delivered more than £500 million in savings for members in 2024/25 from 300+ licence agreements, from Adobe and Microsoft to Crowdstrike, Tanium, Oracle Java and the major academic publishers.
This reflects the sector-powered licensing model identified in the UUK report – a coordinated approach that reduces duplication, strengthens negotiating leverage and ensures consistency across agreements.
Our job is to remove complexity for institutions.
When we negotiate today, we do so with tailored model licences written specifically for UK education and research rather than relying on vendor boilerplate. These licences provide the clarity, protection and transparency institutions need, from usage definitions and audit rights to data governance, accessibility and exit provisions.
And because we apply commercial discipline as standard (transparent pricing, metric stability, sustainable cost profiles) we give institutions predictable multi-year economics in a volatile market.
For institutions, this coordinated approach reduces duplication, eases pressure on procurement and legal teams and delivers real savings of time, risk and money at a point when implementation effort is increasing across the sector. Vendors, too, begin to feel the consistency of sector expectations, which in turn strengthens our negotiating position.
Signing the contract is only part of what institutions need. The other part is the assurance work that sits behind it. Instead of each institution repeating the same security, data protection, accessibility or AI governance checks, we undertake this once, centrally – often with UKUPC – and provides a single assurance pack for members.
In a year where implementation and due-diligence effort is higher than ever, this shared approach delivers significant savings of time and money.
Caren Milloy, our director of licensing, says:
“Our job is to remove complexity for institutions, so they can focus on the transformation and delivery that matter most. The more we align as a sector, the more confident and consistent our position becomes. That shared strength is what allows us to secure the right outcomes in a volatile market.”
Developing the next phase of collaborative procurement
What has changed since the UUK Taskforce report is not simply a recognition of the need to collaborate, it is the strength and alignment of the community now working together. UUK’s call to action catalysed a joint programme bringing together Jisc, UKUPC, UCISA and BUFDG to align negotiation and procurement, improve data transparency and test new models of collective purchasing. UCISA is simultaneously advocating for the adoption of shared digital standards and driving the development of a UK-wide student data model and API framework in partnership with SURF and UK HE stakeholders. UKUPC is reforming its strategy to emphasise non-pay cost reduction, responsible procurement, shared services and deeper sector-wide procurement intelligence.
A single, coordinated ecosystem of collaboration.
Individually, each of these organisations plays an essential role. Together, they form a single, coordinated ecosystem of collaboration, one that is designed not for central control but for collective leverage, consistency and impact.
This alignment gives the sector the clarity and consistency vendors can’t ignore, turning fragmented, one-off conversations into a single strategic negotiation.
Caren points out:
“This isn’t about central edicts, it’s about joining up governance and member voice so we can negotiate and procure digital solutions with an aligned, sector-wide strategy. It only works when every type of institution can see their needs reflected, and when decisions are shaped through the kind of collaborative, evidence-based approach the sector has been calling for.”
Defining strategy to meet sector-wide challenges
To support this collective direction, we manage two UUK-sponsored licensing strategy groups, with a formal mandate to lead the development of a sector-wide negotiation strategy for research, education and enterprise digital solutions. These groups bring together senior leaders from a range of UK institutions with sector and representative bodies, ensuring the strategies reflect:
- the diversity of the sector
- the realities of the marketplaces we negotiate in
- the full value of collective action
Their role is to provide a cohesive sector voice that strengthens the impact of each individual institution.
The strategy groups are supported by our expert groups and representative groups, which bring together specialists from across:
- curriculum and assessment
- library and scholarly communications
- cybersecurity
- digital learning
- research
- accessibility
- procurement
Their real-world experience ensures the strategy is shaped by the people who work directly with these systems every day.
Rob Wraith, co-chair of the Education Technology and Content Expert Group, says:
“It only works through good collaboration, drawing on cross-sector expertise from HE and FE. The meetings are designed for evidence-based reviews, ensuring the sector gets fair, transparent and forward-looking digital content and technology solutions.”
We are now working to knit together representation and governance across this broader ecosystem of sector bodies to make sure expertise, leverage and member voice are aligned at every step of negotiation and procurement.
Why centralised negotiation is necessary
The case for acting as one is becoming clearer each year. In software markets where vendors resist frameworks, where institutions face dependency risk and where global “simplifications” mask local price increases, fragmented buying is an open goal for the supplier. But when the sector sets shared requirements, aligns renewals and insists on model terms and central assurance, the conversation with vendors changes. We move from being passive recipients of global policy to being a coordinated, strategic customer with defined expectations – good for institutions and good for vendors
This approach underpinned the major publisher negotiations, and it now underpins our work in software. It’s also why the UUK Taskforce has asked Jisc, UKUPC, UCISA and BUFDG to embed this approach for the long term.
The case for acting as one is becoming clearer each year.
The shared services already exist. The governance is in place. The next step is to solidify strategic alignment so more vendors enter sustained, structured, transparent relationships with a sector that knows what it wants.
Caren concludes:
“None of this work diminishes institutional autonomy. Colleges and universities will, and should, continue to make decisions that reflect their mission, students, researchers and operational needs. But the challenges of unpredictable pricing, evolving metrics, lock-in, audit pressure and escalating implementation requirements are better shared than tackled alone.
“If we continue negotiating alone, we inherit the volatility of global markets one contract at a time. If we negotiate together, we exchange uncertainty for predictability, complexity for clarity, and duplicated effort for shared assurance. And we unlock the time, budget and capability institutions need for teaching, research and operational transformation.”
Leaders can support this shift by aligning renewals where possible, adopting model terms as standard and contributing to the sector’s consultation and strategy-setting processes. To play a hands-on role in shaping the sector, register your interest in joining the licensing strategic and expert groups.