Whitehall organisation wishes to hear from tech suppliers that could offer a range of services covering infrastructure deployed on government premises as well as cloud provision for department and ALBs

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is inviting bids for a near-£300m contract to provide IT hosting services throughout its group of agencies.

In a newly published commercial notice for a Future Hosting and Storage Services engagement, Defra reveals that it wishes to appoint a tech provider to a long-term deal covering a range of services, encompassing both support of internal infrastructure and the delivery of external cloud environments.

The agreement “will include at its core the following activities: datacentre facilities management and site services (on-premises); cloud hosting services; infrastructure as a service; platform as a service; software as a service; cloud engineering services; cost management and optimisation (FinOps); and transformational… infrastructure services”, the notice says.

Other “optional services” may be brought in scope of the contract in due course, the document adds.

Requests to participate in the bidding process are open until midday on 4 September, after which Defra expects invite between three and five companies to submit full formal tenders for the contract.

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The chosen supplier is then expected to be appointed in August 2026 to an initial five-year contract, which can be extended by two further one-year terms – which would take the ultimate end date to summer 2033.

The deal is expected to be worth £294.6m to the winning bidder, who will deliver services across the department and its array of arm’s-length bodies, which includes several large delivery agencies.

The notice adds: “Defra Digital, Data, Technology and Security Services (DDTS) provides digital services to six organisations within the Defra Group Authority, [including]: Environment Agency; Rural Payments Agency; Animal and Plant Health Agency; Natural England; and Marine Management Organisation, serving locations throughout the UK. Within DDTS resides Group Infrastructure and Operations, providing critical end-to-end technology services and support to c. 33,000 colleagues across the Defra Group.”