Tech firm wins £1.2bn national workforce contract

The firm will supply a platform across the 15-year contract for NHS organisations to manage their whole HR process, covering recruitment and onboarding, workforce management, payroll, and retirement.

The system will manage tens of billions of pounds in payroll each year for the 1.9 million NHS staff in England and Wales.

It is expected to be up and running by 2030 at the earliest, although one government estimate said it could take until 2032 to transition all users off the current system to the new platform.

The current electronic staff record service is provided under a managed service contract by IBM using the Oracle e-Business Suite platform. However, Oracle plans to end premium support for this software in 2033. Therefore, “the ESR Transformation Programme is of critical importance”, the government said.

Infosys will take over the management of the current ESR system from 1 September 2026 and run the legacy platform while it develops the new system.

This month, the NHS finally saw its new integrated single financial environment accounting and procurement system go-live after a four-year development that was beset with a series of delays.

The new system is expected to bring standardisation to the HR systems staff interact with, making a “more consistent and user-friendly experience as colleagues move throughout their careers within the NHS”.

NHS BSA also hopes it will be better integrated with other NHS systems. The agency said this improved connectivity will “give the NHS improved data about its workforce so managers can make better planning decisions, which will drive cost reduction and enable more productivity improvements”.