Report
Beyond digital foundations
Between May and June 2026, 83 higher education providers completed our digital maturity assessment, bringing together perspectives from senior leaders across education, research and professional services. A digital maturity assessment can provide organisations with a foundation for informed decision-making and sustainable digital transformation. Each organisation received a tailored summary of its results to support reflection, planning and future development.
Developed in response to Universities UK's Transformation and efficiency: towards a new era of collaboration (pdf), the assessment provides a sector-wide benchmark of digital maturity. Drawing on our framework and maturity model for digital transformation, it explores leadership, culture, digital capability, infrastructure, data, education, research and the student experience.
The findings provide an evidence-based view of maturity across the sector and highlight that digital maturity depends as much on organisational culture, capacity, prioritisation and investment as it does on technology. The report discusses the barriers and challenges facing organisations and offers evidence and examples of more mature digital practices.
Supporting resources and next steps
- Find out more about the building a shared baseline for digital maturity across higher education project
- Organisations wishing to understand how these findings apply within their own context can explore digital maturity in greater depth through our digital transformation consultancy services
- Stay up to date with this work by joining our working group for digital transformation in higher education
- Find out how the assessment findings can support your organisation's priorities by contacting Lou McGill (lou.mcgill@jisc.ac.uk) or Sarah Knight (sarah.knight@jisc.ac.uk)
About the authors
I am director of digital leadership and transformation in tertiary education. My team and I support universities and colleges with digital leadership and transformation. This includes working with senior leaders to support their use of Jisc frameworks and maturity models to support their strategic aims. Other activities in my portfolio include researching international and transnational education (TNE) staff and students' digital experiences; supporting staff with curriculum and assessment design. In addition we support communities of practice including our senior leaders working group for digital transformation, our student experience experts group, working groups for assessment and feedback and international and TNE students’ digital experiences.
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