SONI090 – Client-Side Advisor

Buyer
SONI Ltd
Value
£6,300,000
Closes
20 November 2026
Where
Belfast
Type
Sets up a framework (suppliers apply to join)

In plain English

SONI, the company that runs Northern Ireland's electricity grid, wants to appoint one supplier to act as its independent expert partner while it separates its corporate IT from a shared parent setup and sets up a new Security Operations Centre (a team that monitors and defends computer systems against cyber attacks). The supplier would provide programme management, technical checks, testing oversight and transition support, working alongside SONI's own teams and the firms delivering the actual systems.

What the buyer wants

• Programme leadership and delivery oversight of the systems integrators and suppliers carrying out the separation work, including managing timelines, risks and governance • Technical assurance and test assurance, checking that the systems being built meet requirements before they go live • Transition support to help SONI move from the separated arrangements into full operation, working alongside internal teams and other advisors. The supplier does not deliver the systems or equipment itself

Likely requirements

Our reading of the notice. Always check the tender documents.

Most small businesses would be disqualified by the need for a single supplier able to run a multi-workstream programme of this size (£6.3m) in critical energy infrastructure, with proven senior programme leadership and capacity to scale across several concurrent separation workstreams.

How to bid

This is a framework: the buyer picks a set of suppliers now and awards work to them over several years. If you are not on it when it is awarded, you usually cannot win work from it until it is re-tendered, so this is the window to bid.

How framework contracts work

More open tenders from SONI Ltd

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