IT Flex Partners Services

1. Background information on The University of Manchester

The University of Manchester is a place where research has a global impact, where students experience outstanding teaching and learning, helping them to develop into tomorrow's leaders, and where all activity is enriched by a commitment to social responsibility.

Manchester was the first and most eminent of England's civic universities. Today, we're part of the prestigious Russell Group of UK universities, with an international reputation for the highest level of research and teaching, as demonstrated by our position in the Academic Ranking of World Universities. In 2021 we were placed 35th in the world and fifth in the UK.

Looking ahead, it's our vision to be one of the world's leading universities and to be recognised globally for the excellence of our people, research, learning and innovations, and for the benefits we bring to society and the environment.

The University employs over 13,000 staff across 3 faculties plus professional services and plays a key role in the cultural life of the region through Manchester Museum, John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Jodrell Bank (UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Whitworth Art Gallery. Our student community is one of the largest in the UK and at present we have more than 44,000 students studying at the University

This quality of research feeds into our taught courses, many of which are also designed to meet the needs of industry. We offer more than 1,000 degree programmes and receive more undergraduate applications than any other UK university.

Further details on the University can be found at:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/facts-figures/

2. Background information on Project

The University is looking to engage with third party suppliers to appoint strategic flex model partners to support the current in-house IT capability. The scope of IT Services is wide reaching, across nine Lots, with approximately 400 University staff performing various roles across the IT end to end landscape. This includes but is not limited to roles across the project and pre-project lifecycle, and resources who provide live support to keep our vast number of student and staff systems and applications operating efficiently. Whilst the University delivers mainly waterfall projects, we also have a desire to move more formally to an Agile delivery methodology.

The IT Flex partners will complement existing in-house IT delivery teams with an appropriate Flex model to provide, at short notice, resources in the event that one or more of our IT team(s) require specific expertise or are unable to fully resource IT delivery or support commitments, this is to include agreement on delivery of works via statements of work and the potential for future ongoing Managed service provisions.

3. Project Overview

This tender exercise will be split into nine different Lots. These are:

1. General IT Services

2. Testin...