UK public sector and VMware after Broadcom: a contract-notice tracker

What the notices show

• 620 published procurements naming a virtualisation platform. From 1 January 2021 to 19 September 2026, UK public bodies published 620 distinct procurements for virtualisation platforms or VMware end-user computing (from 789 matched records, of which 129 were read and found not relevant). By platform: VMware 446, Nutanix 101, Horizon / Omnissa 62, Hyper-V 7, Azure Local / Azure Stack HCI 3 and not named 3. These sum to 622 because 2 procurements name two platforms and are counted under both.
• Licence and subscription renewals: 381 of 620. By type of purchase: licence or subscription 381, hardware bundled with a platform 116, end-user computing 62, services and migration 32, and support and maintenance 29. Each procurement has one class, assigned by reading the notice under written rules.
• Same-buyer VMware renewals: median +42.4% in annualised value. In the 21 same-buyer pairs that pass every comparability check, the median change in annualised contract value from the renewal before the acquisition to the one after it was +42.4% (interquartile range +22.6% to +96.2%; range -4.6% to +263.0%). 20 pairs rose and 1 fell. Alternative pairing choices for 2 buyers give medians from +42.4% to +52.5%, including +44.7% with South Yorkshire Police's separate Horizon subscription renewal added to its after-acquisition figure. The comparison uses published contract values; licence quantities are rarely published, so a change can reflect a different estate or product mix as well as price.
• VMware licence procurements: 162 before, 169 after the acquisition. Of the VMware core licence and subscription procurements, 162 have a contract starting before 22 November 2023 and 169 on or after it (dated by published contract start for 282, by first notice for 49). 93 of the 169 were first published after the Procurement Act 2023 took effect on 24 February 2025, when publication rules changed, so the two counts are not a like-for-like trend. 29 of the 169 name VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), against none of the 162 before.
• Nutanix in 101 procurements, Hyper-V in 7. Nutanix appears in 101 procurements (45 hardware bundles, 41 licence or subscription, 13 support, 2 services): 50 dated before the acquisition and 51 after. Hyper-V appears in 7 and Azure Local / Azure Stack HCI in 3. 14 procurements state a move between platforms or that alternatives are being considered; named destinations include Azure VMware Solution (3), cloud services (2), Nutanix (2) and Azure Local, and 3 describe replacing VMware without naming the target.
• Median awarded value £122,895. The median published award across 580 procurements with an awarded value was £122,895 (interquartile range £53,176 to £325,314); for VMware core licence and subscription it was £95,579 (309 awards). Totals are shown only with and without the 22 records whose value covers more than the platform purchase: £729.6m with them and £237.6m without.

To help public-sector organisations plan virtualisation renewals and migrations by showing what comparable bodies have published. Neutral description of published notices; no judgement on any buyer or supplier.

Same-buyer VMware renewals before and after the acquisition

Same-buyer renewals. A pair counts only when the same buyer bought the same VMware licence estate before and after 22 November 2023, both sides have a published award value and term, and the scope matches after reading both notices. The after side is the buyer's first contract for that estate starting on or after 22 November 2023. Values are annualised; a term under 11.5 months is not scaled up. Sensitivity: the median would be +46.8% if the Met Office's first post-acquisition support renewal were set aside as a transition contract and its next contract used instead, +46.8% if the award by the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire under the same agreement were left out of the force's before-acquisition figure and +52.5% if both of those changes were made, and +44.7% if South Yorkshire Police's separate Horizon subscription renewal were annualised and added to its after-acquisition figure; it would stay at +42.4% if the Met Office's separate vSphere subscription were also added to its before-acquisition figure.

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21 pairs pass every check. 27 pairs were examined: 5 were rated low comparability and 1 could not be computed (term not published); all are listed in paired_renewals.pairs. Annualised value = published contract value / (term in months / 12); terms under 11.5 months are not scaled up. Each side is a single award, except where the notices show the same estate was bought under two concurrent contracts that the other side's contract replaced as a whole; these are annualised separately and added. Any other contract (not the one the post contract renews) that continued after the post contract started, and so was not replaced by it, is in neither side (listed under concurrent_notices). Values are contract values, not unit prices. Sensitivity: the median would be +46.8% if the Met Office's first post-acquisition support renewal were set aside as a transition contract and its next contract used instead, +46.8% if the award by the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire under the same agreement were left out of the force's before-acquisition figure and +52.5% if both of those changes were made, and +44.7% if South Yorkshire Police's separate Horizon subscription renewal were annualised and added to its after-acquisition figure; it would stay at +42.4% if the Met Office's separate vSphere subscription were also added to its before-acquisition figure. Quartiles use the exclusive method; contract terms are counted in days divided by 30.4375 and rounded to 0.1 month.

Procurements by quarter of first notice

Procurements by quarter of first notice. The Procurement Act 2023 changed what is published, and where, from 24 February 2025, so the series is split at that date and the two parts should not be read as one trend. The latest quarter is partial (to 19 September 2026).

Before and after the acquisition. Broadcom's acquisition of VMware closed on 22 November 2023. Each procurement is placed before or after that date by its published contract start, or by its first notice where no start date is published.

By platform and class

What was bought, by platform. Counts are of distinct procurements after linking notices that were cross-posted between portals or published separately for the tender and the award. A procurement is counted under the platform it buys; where a notice names only the platform being replaced, the platform is recorded as not named.

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What kind of purchase. Each procurement has one class - licence or subscription, hardware bundle, end-user computing, services and migration, or support and maintenance - assigned by reading the notice text under the published classification rules.

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Contract values. Values are published award or contract values in GBP, normally excluding VAT: the most a buyer may spend, not what it paid. Medians are the headline figures; totals are shown only as a pair, with and without the records whose value covers more than the platform purchase.

Alternatives in the notices. Platform changes are recorded only where a notice itself states a move or says alternatives are being considered; nothing is inferred from a buyer's later purchases.

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Planning notes for public-sector IT teams

Practical points drawn from the published notices. They describe options, not recommendations for any product or supplier.

• Start from your own baseline. Use your current contract's annualised value, term and licensed core count as the starting point for the next renewal. In the 21 comparable pairs the change ranged from -4.6% to +263.0%, so the median of +42.4% is not a forecast for any one organisation; estate size and product mix vary between renewals.
• Confirm what a renewal quote covers. Check the edition, term and core count that a quote is based on. 29 of the 169 post-acquisition VMware licence procurements name VMware Cloud Foundation, against none of the 162 before it. Horizon and Workspace ONE have been sold by Omnissa since 1 July 2024; 6 core agreements in the data also included these products, so check whether end-user computing needs its own renewal.
• Assess alternatives early enough to test them. Notices in the data describe moves to Azure VMware Solution (3), cloud services (2), Nutanix (2) and Azure Local, and 3 describe replacing VMware without naming the target. 116 procurements bought hardware for or with a platform, so aligning host refresh dates with licence renewals can widen the options that are practical at renewal time.
• Check existing routes to market. 391 of the 620 procurements mention a framework or call-off. Collaborative agreements also exist, such as BlueLight Commercial's VMware and Omnissa agreements for police, fire and rescue services, so check whether a sector agreement already covers your organisation before starting a separate procurement.
• Publish complete award notices. 40 of the 620 procurements have no published award value (some show only an estimate or an award of £0), and some notices appear months after the contract started. Publishing the award value, term and scope promptly helps other public bodies plan and benchmark their own renewals.

How the tracker was built

Notices were found by scanning the open-data files of the four portals and the portals' own keyword searches; every matched record was read and classified under the published rules; two independent checks re-fetched samples from the live portals.

Download the data. The CSV lists every procurement with its buyer, platform, class, dates, value, flags and links to the source notices. Source notices are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0; the derived tables are released under CC BY 4.0.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (Contracts Finder and Find a Tender - Cabinet Office; Public Contracts Scotland - Scottish Government; Sell2Wales - Welsh Government). Derived tables: CC BY 4.0 - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Downloads: CSV · README and licences · JSON.

Questions

Planning a virtualisation renewal or move

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