OVERLY LONG DISCLAIMER: I have past, present and possibly future commercial relationships with a number of MIS vendors and their investors. I'm also a co-founder of two assessment ventures - Smartgrade and Carousel - that exist in markets adjacent to the MIS. Nonetheless I aim to write this blog impartially, from the perspective of a neutral observer. This matters to me - it's basically the blog I wish had existed back when I was a MAT senior leader trying to get a handle on who the key players were in the MIS market.
If you're looking professionally at the MIS market right now, you may be interested in the Insights Report and Datasets on the MIS market (and adjacencies) that I co-produced with Teacher Tapp - you can find out more here.
Oh, and you can follow me on LinkedIn, Bluesky or Twitter.
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Lisa Loeb is best known for writing the inoffensive earworm Stay that propelled her from obscurity to instant stardom. But the success was less sudden than it seemed, as she herself acknowledges:
My overnight success was really 15 years in the making.
I reckon that observation would resonate with Arbor co-founder James Weatherill. When his school MIS company was formed in 2011, I very much doubt their business plan said "it'll take us a decade to get to a point where one in twenty schools are using us. But that's what happened, more or less - by late 2020, after 9 years of hard slog, they were still only supplying 5% of English state schools with an MIS. They also had a brand awareness problem: as I found out from partnering with the awesome Teacher Tapp to write a report on the MIS market earlier this year, barely 20% of teachers had heard of them in 2020, let alone used them.
But don't feel bad for them, because in the past five years, this happened:
That is my tediously roundabout way of letting you know that Arbor are now the largest MIS vendor in the English state sector, with 39% of schools! Since October 2024 (the last time I blogged about the market) they've grown by 9 percentage points. To put this rate of change in context, when I first started blogging about the MIS market in 2014, just 1-2% of all schools changed MIS in any given year. So here's to Arbor, and their overnight-success-that-wasn't. Building a business is a rollercoaster, and there are plenty of gut punches along the way. I hope all their employees, past and present, are savouring this moment.
- The Key Group have 50% of the English state school market. The Key owns three MIS: Arbor, Integris and ScholarPack. The combined market share of these three systems is now 50%. The Key Group have already announced that Integris and ScholarPack are shuttering in 2026, so schools on those MIS which are going end of life will either migrate to Arbor or move to a competitor. Either way, on current trends you'd expect The Key Group to cement their position as the new vendor with a majority market share in the coming year - a crown which SIMS wore until 2023. Speaking of which...
- SIMS are finding out that three year contracts are a double edged sword. In late 2022 I wrote the following about SIMS's strategy of requiring schools to sign a three year contract: "If you're SIMS you're really hoping that the three year contracts you've enforced mean that at least the the exodus stops now. You're also keeping your fingers crossed that customers will like your new "Next Gen" product once they see it. And you're no doubt cooking up other strategies to keep customers with you." Well, to an extent the strategy worked, in that SIMS's losses were significantly lower in 2023 and 2024 than they were in 2022 (2022: 2,642; 2023: 1,133; 2024: 1,323). The problem, however, is that the approach SIMS took meant that lots of schools were up for contract renewal in Spring 2025, and it turns out that 2,264 of their schools have chosen to switch away from SIMS so far this academic year - 24% of their autumn 2024 market share. And that number is only counting the first two terms of the year - for full year comparisons with previous years we'll need to wait until I get the October 2025 (around Christmastime, if you're interested). As a consequence, SIMS have gone from a 74% market share in 2020 to 34% in May 2025.
- Bromcom continues to grow - and produce the most enjoyable annual accounts. If you're just here for the numbers, what you need to know is that Bromcom have grown their market share to 15% of English state schools, and that their share is even higher - at 19% - when measured by number of pupils. That's solid growth, particularly when seen alongside their notable wins in Wales. There's no doubt that Bromcom are Arbor's main competitor and the only other vendor notching up a significant share of wins (31% of all schools switching over the last two terms, whereas no other vendor is above 2%). But what I want to focus on here is how Bromcom is just clearly head and shoulders above their peers when it comes to writing entertaining annual accounts. For example, here's an excerpt from the 2024 document: "A string of PE companies continued to hound Bromcom; however, unlike most competitors, the Company's strong and profitable trading, robust balance sheet, and excellent market position have allowed the Company to follow its own agenda." Lovely stuff! The word "hound" is underused and I would like to see it in all MIS vendors' accounts from now on, please. They're also not afraid to cast shade on the opposition, at one point referring to "outdated, non-cloud-based systems such as SIMS and FMS6". When your hobby-slash-job involves scouring dour edtech accounts for salient information, you really appreciate it when you stumble across jaunty or idiosynchratic content. Thanks, Bromcom!
- Compass are finding their way. Compass now have 72 schools, up from 30 in autumn 2024. They were the only vendor other than Arbor or Bromcom to show meaningful growth, and I can't see any recent losses either, so it seems like they're hanging on to schools once they switch. All this makes them one to watch.
- SatchelOne and GO4Schools are also both now showing up in the data. Satchel has grown from 1 school in autumn 2024 to 4 in the latest update. GO4Schools are showing up for the first time, with 3 schools. Both are vendors with established edtech offers for secondary schools pre-dating their entry into the MIS market, so again, they're ones to watch.
- IRIS and Juniper are still struggling. IRIS (whose main state school MIS is Ed:Gen, though a few also still use iSAMS, which is more commonly seen in private schools) had jumped from 18 to 86 schools between 2021 and 2022. Since then however they're stagnated somewhat, moving from 121 to 123 schools in the last two terms. Juniper are continuing to decline, with 248 schools showing across their 3 MIS (Pupil Asset, Horizons and JuniperMIS), down from 284 in 2024. Of course, things could change in the future, but both will surely be disappointed that they didn't fare better during a period when 13% of schools switched MIS.
- I need some sleep. A surprising (and if I'm honest, flattering) number of you gave me grief for not writing a blog about this January's census numbers. In my defence, we had our second child in February, and also my assessment ventures Smartgrade and Carousel continue to grow. So what I'm trying to say is, while I do love writing about MIS, I love sleep even more, and as it turns out I need some very badly right now. So it's time to publish this and then promptly doze off while listening to a Spotify Greatest Hit (singular) compilation of the great pop songstress and now unwitting MIS commentator, Lisa Loeb.
