UK military looking for tactical comms, systems suppliers in deal worth up to £9.6B
- Reference: 1762765187
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/10/uk_military_seeks_tactical_comms/
- Source link:
A [1]procurement notice called for vendors to come forward with “specialized military grade tactical communication and information systems, including hardware, software and associated design and implementation and support services”.
It said the kit could be “deployed in active battlefield environments for critical real-time operational tactical communications”.
[2]
Under a framework agreement — an arrangement under which the public sector commits to an indicative volume in spending while suppliers agree pricing — contracts could be worth up to £9.6 billion including VAT, and £8 billion excluding VAT. The contract is expected to run from 10 June 2026 to 9 June 2034.
[3]
[4]
In a supplier briefing, officials said the tendering process is being run and managed by Crown Commercial Services, the government procurement unit run within the Cabinet Office. The Ministry of Defence is the design lead and will be the primary user, though the framework will be available to others in the UK public sector, including the police, fire brigades, ambulance services and the coast guard (Blue Light services).
As an aside, this creates a curious question. Keen readers will remember Blue Light services are in the middle of [5]one of the most disastrous tech projects in government history : to build a new secure voice and data network and linked devices.
[6]
The 4G-based Emergency Service Network is set to be up to 12 years late and has seen its expected budget more than double to £11 billion ($13.92 billion). Delays have [7]meant some services have sought alternative tech upgrades as a stop-gap, and, potentially, the new deal for "Tactical Communication Systems" could offer another option.
[8]Black Hawk chown: DARPA takes helicopter pilots out of the air for $6M
[9]Shield AI shows off not-at-all-terrifying autonomous VTOL combat drone
[10]UK calls up Armed Forces veterans for digital ID soft launch
[11]Police and military radio maker BK Technologies cops to cyber break-in
Officials said the new framework agreement would be opened to competition every two years to allow new suppliers on board and renegotiate pricing. They said systems provided would mainly serve land tactical environment, but they must also be capable of being used on air and maritime platforms, and interoperate with systems in those domains, as well as other government departments and coalition allies.
The emphasis is on tactical communications, but the framework is also expected to provide information and data processing and communications, "everything from intercom telephony and half duplex radio voice services to complex information and data processing and distribution and all the infrastructure services and hardware that support user-facing functions," one official said. ®
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[1] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/070535-2025
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRHFyf-r-wH-ONwjRnVTWQAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRHFyf-r-wH-ONwjRnVTWQAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aRHFyf-r-wH-ONwjRnVTWQAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/05/esn_home_offifce_committee/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRHFyf-r-wH-ONwjRnVTWQAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/28/uk_esn_alternative/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/05/pilotless_black_hawk_darpas/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/24/shield_ai_x_bat/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/uk_armed_forces_id/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/07/police_and_military_radio_maker_bk_admits_breach/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"has seen its expected budget more than double to £11 billion"
So don't worry, taxpayers, this "new framework" will end up ten years late and £10 billion over budget.
Carry on !
Project Cassandra
In the words of Riddick, now here's what's gonna happen........
A couple of vendors will have something off the shelf that's capable of doing what's needed and close enough to the budget to be acceptable. UK MoD will find dozens of reasons why it's not perfect and either turn them down flat or request so many changes that it might as well be a different product so the vendors will walk away. A full procurement exercise will follow which will take up 20% of the expected development time and result in contracts being signed at significantly higher prices than the budget. These contracts will overrun, overspend and if the kit ever comes into service it will be virtually obsolete on day 1.
the framework will be available to others in the UK public sector
It doesn't mean others will use it, just that it makes all the contract/legal work simpler if you bake this all in up front. It's all about giving you options. And if you have an adjacent contract that is giving you lots of grief, having this in your back pocket A) gives you a practical alternative, and B) Strengthens your negotiating hand. It does have the down side of putting lots of eggs in one basket, but hopefully they've learned some lessons from the current blue light comms contract debacle.
Learn !!!??? ......... Ha ha ha ha Ha Ha Ha .... Good one .... that always get a LAUGH !!!
"It does have the down side of putting lots of eggs in one basket, but hopefully they've learned some lessons from the current blue light comms contract debacle"
The ONLY lesson learnt is that NO lessons have been learnt over the 12 years of 'Blue Light' non-delivery.
This NEW catch-all tender is just another opportunity for the vendor(s) to take an 'off the shelf' product and pay at least 10x the price for it.
The final spec [for this year !!!] will be take product A, add 1000 changes to it to allow EVERYONE to use the technology across all the different 'possible' arenas included in the 'Framework'.
The changes will take 2 years minimum (allowing the 'numbers' to be re-negotiated according to the tender conditions), only for the testing to prove that it does not work everywhere ... this will start the cycle of re-spec, re-negotiate price, delivery late/never ... repeat until project is drastically shrunk to attempt to generate a real delivery [AKA: HS2 strategy] !!!
After 5 years the expectation of delivery will have reduced to practically Zero !!!
Vendors will have been paid 5x the price 'originally agreed' without any fully working delivery !!!
Finally, New Govt - New Ideas - New requirements ... but still no delivery ... repeat process again until 'funds\will to live' runs out !!!
:)
Re: Learn !!!??? ......... Ha ha ha ha Ha Ha Ha .... Good one .... that always get a LAUGH !!!
"The ONLY lesson learnt is that NO lessons have been learnt ...."
Whilst your post is on topic, relevant, and probably accurate, it would have been much more persuasive and easier to read if you'd used more conventional grammatical formatting, and been a whole lot more parsimonious in your deployment of exclamation marks and the random use of varied brackets, spaces and stops.
AC on account of my own grammatical sins.
If they need it to be interoperable with (current) allies, then they can't really develop anything new. They've probably already decided that they want access Musk's starsheild system but they need to do a tender for sake of appearances. And to meet the British use case it will somehow have to be made more expensive, less reliable and less secure.
Whatever is finally delivered will probably lock us into a cycle of paying a huge annual subscription fee into perpetuity and be subject to the whims of the American government, or a crazy foreign trillionaire who will be able to monitor it, spoof it or turn it off if our government don't do as they are told.
You can get WIfi HaLow stuff...
with a 3km range inc your own personal wifi hotspot for 250$ for hub and receiver... you can get anything from China ... oh wait.
Signal anyone?
“specialized military grade"...
...meaning Security, Encryption, and compliance with GDPR are all optional...