002621 - Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) for 24/7 Managed Security Operations and a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service · Durham County Council

In October 2025, Durham County Council issued a UK2 Preliminary Market Engagement Notice (2025/S 000-063329) and written PME questionnaire on the Open Portal (OPEN20251753) for Extended Detection and Response (XDR) Solution for Endpoint and Email Protection with 24/7 Security Operations Centre (SOC) Services.

This engagement attracted 24 responses from the market, however the scope of our requirements has now changed, and we are re-engaging with the market regarding our refined requirements. Please note, Extended Detection and Response is no longer within the scope of this procurement process. Our annual budget is approximately £600,000 per annum and will be looking to procure a contract with an initial term of 3 years, with 2 x 24 month optional extensions.

As part of this market engagement process, we are particularly interested in providers proposing what they feel is realistic without our stated budget and in line with our requirements and digital estate priorities. Following satisfactory completion of the below questionnaire, we will be inviting interested suppliers to participate in 1 hour Teams discussions in September 2026, to discuss your specific offering in line with our requirements.

These technical discussions will still be part of Preliminary Market Engagement to help us refine our specification and tender documents further, prior to issuing competitive tender process documents.