UK HMRC awards £657M in low-code contracts to Atos, Cognizant, and Coforge

HMRC has split its low-code procurement into three distinct work packages, each with a different scope and supplier. Atos handles programme oversight, supplier management, and governance under Lot 3. Cognizant and Coforge each provide build, configuration, DevOps, and live service management under Lots 1 and 2 respectively. All three contracts carry an initial three-year term with two optional one-year extensions. This structure separates leadership and assurance from delivery, which suggests HMRC expects coordination overhead rather than self-organizing citizen development.

The combined £657 million call-off value sits within a wider DALAS framework originally estimated at up to £4.5 billion. Lot 4a alone was initially estimated at £700 million, later revalued alongside other lots at £2.8 billion for the second phase. These figures indicate that low-code adoption at HMRC's scale involves substantial ongoing expenditure on specialist configuration and support services, not just platform licensing. The Register's framing, that low code does not mean low cost, directly challenges vendor narratives around cost reduction through citizen development.

The technologies named in the DALAS lot, Pega, ServiceNow, Microsoft Dynamics, and Power Platform, are enterprise platforms that require significant configuration and integration effort in complex environments. HMRC operates what the National Audit Office described as one of the largest and most complex IT estates in the UK. Legacy remediation there has already exceeded expected timelines and budgets. Low-code tools may accelerate certain delivery tasks, but the procurement structure and spending levels suggest HMRC treats them as enterprise platforms requiring professional governance rather than as democratizing tools that reduce dependency on specialists.

The decision to award governance and oversight to a separate supplier rather than bundling it with delivery work is notable. It implies HMRC wants independent assurance over how low-code platforms are configured and maintained, which adds cost but also reduces the risk of vendor lock-in or misaligned incentives. Whether this structure delivers better outcomes than integrated delivery remains to be seen, but it signals that HMRC views low-code management as a discipline requiring its own accountability chain.