Official UK procurement notice
Student Information System of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Authority: The Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionGuildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD), recognised as one of the world’s leading conservatoires and a key institution within the City of London Corporation, currently utilises a Student Information System (SIS) to manage the entire student lifecycle from admissions and enrolment through to assessment, progression, and graduation. While this system has provided a solid foundation for both academic and administrative operations over several years, GSMD is now reassessing its long-term SIS strategy in response to sector developments, digital transformation ambitions, and the evolving needs of students and staff.
This Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) and Soft Market Testing (SMT) exercise aims to explore the current market landscape for higher education SIS solutions, including the latest offerings and alternative suppliers. The objective is to inform an options appraisal that will guide GSMD’s future procurement approach, ensuring any subsequent tender is both feasible and aligned with the School’s strategic direction.
The City of London Corporation and GSMD seek to:
- Identify innovative, robust, and cost-effective SIS solutions that support GSMD’s digital transformation and sector best practice.
- Gather insights on deployment models, interoperability, user experience, compliance, and support arrangements.
- Inform an options appraisal and procurement strategy that delivers long-term value for students, staff, and the institution.
- Mitigate the risk of launching an unachievable or misaligned procurement by understanding market capabilities, indicative pricing, and implementation approaches.
Through this process, GSMD is particularly interested in:
- Cloud-based models (SaaS or managed service)
- Core SIS capabilities: admissions, enrolment, curriculum management, timetabling, assessment, progression, graduation, and reporting
- Interoperability via APIs or integration with systems .
CPV: Educational software development services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Planned
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Past planning notice
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 29 Oct 2025, 11:01 GMT
- Last source update
- 29 Oct 2025, 11:01 GMT
- FTS notice number
2025/S 000-069270- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-05d5faFind a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
29 Oct 2025 → 1 May 2026 · 3 dates- Planning notice published365 days ago29 Oct 2025, 11:01 GMT
- Market engagement349 days ago13 Nov 2025, 23:59 GMT
PME in this case is where City Corporation, at an early stage in development of its proposals but prior to formulating any formal procurement opportunity, seeks input from the market as to what might be the most attractive way of packaging and scoping a future procurement opportunity.
This exercise will provide an opportunity for City Corporation to obtain insight into how participants might approach the delivery of the service in question. It also gives useful early insight into the likely level of interest in a proposed project from that market.
Invited participants will not be prejudiced by any response or failure to respond to the soft market testing or failure to attend any follow up face-to-face interviews that may be arranged.
Participants must also note that a response to this notice does not guarantee an invitation to participate in this or any future procurement that City Corporation may conduct, nor that City Corporation will procure any such supply and services or accepts any proposals offered.
City Corporation has developed a questionnaire (attached to the portal advert) that they would like interested parties to complete; interested participants MAY then be invited to meet with the project team to discuss in more detail the options.
As stated above, the outcome of the PME exercise will inform our procurement options appraisal with recommendations.
Further detailed reports will be prepared as appropriate in accordance with the City Corporation’s tender and approval procedures, and in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2023.
This SMT will comprise:
- Submission of the SMT Questionnaire - your questionnaire must be received by the deadline.
- Any individual Supplier Meetings (if applicable) will be based on the questions and responses contained within the SMT Questionnaire. The City might invite market operators who submit the SMT Questionnaires to meetings and/or workshops, the City will advise if this will be the case.
Questionnaire must be returned by via the City of London Corporation Sourcing and Contracts portal cityoflondon.ukp.app.jaggaer.com ↗ by 12:00 Noon on 13 November 2025
- Contract starts181 days ago1 May 2026, 00:00 BST
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published29 Oct 2025, 11:01 GMTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender