Scottish Water has awarded a multi million pound contract for digital transformation services with an estimated total value of between £115 million to £150 million (excluding VAT) across a maximum 8 year framework term.
Scottish Water went out to tender in May 2025 – the company says its Scottish Water Digital Directorate is dedicated to delivering digital and technology services that provide measurable value to core business operations in close collaboration with its business partners.
The utility has already successfully implemented a cloud-first strategy, replacing many of its legacy enterprise applications with evergreen SaaS solutions. Its primary cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, serves as the foundation for building and running innovative solutions.
Setting out the context for the framework, Scottish water explained that the convergence of IT, Smart IoT Technology, and Operational Technology (OT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) is accelerating.
Its assets are increasingly connected to the internet through a growing array of sensors, offering opportunities to enhance services, improve data analytics and visualisations, and reduce costs and carbon emissions via an intelligent asset base.
“Compliance with regulatory standards, is essential and supplier partnerships that seamlessly integrate these complex digital innovations with engineering practices across capital investments are crucial,” the company said.
Scottish Water said in the tender it was seeking supplier partnerships that operate at scale, with extensive experience and expertise. The company’s aim was to establish relationships with partners who have strategies supporting modern engineering practices like Platform Engineering, DevOps, CI/CD, Automation, Software Defined Networking, Zero Trust, and IT/OT convergence, ensuring secure technology transformation.
Partners were invited to collaborate with Scottish Water through a transformation delivery framework delivering the following services:
- Delivery services: Tailored delivery services to meet specific client requirements across the broad range of digital technologies deployed currently and in the future.
- Adaptive Delivery Service: delivery services that will enable SW to produce high-quality products quickly and efficiently, utilising modern engineering practices including but not limited to, platform engineering, DevOps, CI/CD, automation & advanced data analytics and visualisation.
- Business Analysis: Collaborate closely with product owners, stakeholders, and development teams to ensure that business requirements and outcomes are clearly defined and deliverable.
- Testing Services: providing a comprehensive, streamlined, and scalable testing solution that enhances quality, reduces costs, and accelerates time-to-delivery.
Key requirements from interested suppliers included:
- Proven track record in adaptive digital delivery services.
- Expertise in implementing scalable and efficient delivery systems.
- Strong customer focus and engagement.
- Innovative solutions that enhance operational efficiency and deliver business outcomes.
The water company received a total of 17 tenders for the framework – contracts have now been awarded to the following firms:
- AtkinsRealis UK Ltd
- ANDigital Ltd
- Atos IT Services UK Ltd
- Capgemini UK Plc
- Accenture (UK) Ltd
- Calba Ltd
- Core Technology Systems (U.K.) Ltd
- Qualitest ( rebranded to QualityAI in June 2026)
- Tata Consultancy Service Ltd
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