We now have the data from the January census of maintained schools in England, allowing us to see the market shares of all the MIS providers.
As fully expected, the trend continues once again, with ESS SIMS losing ground whilst their main rivals, Arbor and Bromcom, continue to grow market share.
Since the Autumn census, ESS SIMS have lost a further 768 schools, bringing their numbers down to just 8,818 maintained schools in England. Their market share is now down to just 40.03%.
Looking across the January census figures from 2021 to this year, we see that the SIMS school numbers have fallen dramatically, from a healthy 15,753 schools using their MIS in January 2021 to just 8,818 this year.
That is a loss of some 6,935 schools in just four years! This means that some 44% of their schools have moved away from SIMS in that time.
It reduces their market share from 67% in 2021 to just 40% now.
Looking further back, SIMS was the dominant player for many years, with around 85% of the market in England only ten years ago…
The big winners continue to be Arbor and Bromcom again.
Arbor have increased their school numbers from 6,562 in the Autumn census returns to 7,326 now. That is an increase of 764 schools in one term! It should be noted that these did not all come from schools leaving SIMS – many schools have migrated from either Integris or ScholarPack to Arbor, with The Key Group owning all three MIS systems and openly announcing that they will be moving all Integris and ScholarPack schools to Arbor by February 2026.
Bromcom have also gained significant numbers, increasing their market share by over 250 schools.
Alongside SIMS, we see the biggest losses coming from Integris (down by 130 schools) and ScholarPack (down by 124 schools).
It is easy to see the drastic change in school numbers from the above chart, with the SIMS columns dropping rapidly whilst those of Arbor, in particular, and Bromcom, to a lesser extent, growing quickly.
In terms of the market share, the pattern is very similar:
Where SIMS was once the dominant provider to English maintained schools, that has changed dramatically. They now have just 40.03% of the market, with Arbor snapping at their heels with 33.26%. Bromcom have also gained share, up to 12.49%.
Added to this is the fact that a large number of schools and MATs have recently procured a new MIS provider, due to the fact that their three-year contract with ESS SIMS expires this month. Many of these will have completed the January census using their current SIMS system, not wanting to undertake such a crucial piece of work whilst learning a new platform. This means that we are likely to see another significant change in the market when we have the next census figures in the summer…
However, the picture is even worse for SIMS when you take into account that The Key Group own three MIS platforms – Arbor, Integris and ScholarPack. If we add these three together, we see that they have a combined total of 9,954 schools and a market share of some 45.19% – significantly above the SIMS numbers.
Looking at the combined school numbers for these three platforms across the past 4 years we can see the huge growth for this group.
Given that the plan is to migrate all Integris and ScholarPack schools across to the Arbor platform, it seems that the dominant provider is almost certainly going to be Arbor within the year!
It should, of course, be noted that we are looking at the English maintained school market only here. We do not have the same data for the other UK countries but we can add some context to the overall picture.
Bromcom won the contract for all 1,150 schools in Northern Ireland, bringing their numbers up considerably. On top of that, they have also won several Welsh local authorities, bringing them further school numbers. Adding these to their English schools would give them over 4,000 schools in total.
Arbor have secured contracts in Wales as well, so their overall numbers will also be slightly higher.
In Scotland, SEEMiS have all the maintained schools using their ‘Click’nGo’ MIS platform, giving them around 2,600 schools, although we have heard rumours that several of the Scottish Local Authorities are no longer happy with this platform and have begun to explore the market.
So, in summary, SIMS continue to fall whilst their main competitors continue to rise. One reason for this would seem to be that ESS do not yet have a full version of their cloud-based platform, SIMS Next Gen. From the work we have been doing with several Multi Academy Trusts recently, assisting them with their MIS procurement projects, it seems that they all want to change to a cloud-based system that has everything there already and are not keen to remain with a system that promises to deliver all that they want, but not quite yet!
We continue to monitor the MIS sector and look forward to seeing where it goes next. Certainly, there will be significant change over the coming twelve months. We have the next wave of SIMS three-year contracts due to expire in March 2026, as well as the migration of Integris and ScholarPack schools across to the Arbor platform (or whichever other MIS provider they choose) by February 2026.
WhichMIS continue to offer free and impartial advice on MIS procurement as well as MIS procurement project services. If you are thinking about your current MIS platform and whether or not you should consider changing it, please feel free to contact us for free resources and advice to help you make the right decisions.
It may well be that you don’t need to change your MIS at all. Often we see schools and MATs that are not utilising their current MIS to its full potential or are not aware of all the functionality that they already have.
If you do decide to change provider, remember, this is not a small undertaking and should be managed carefully – and that’s where WhichMIS can help.
