The Ministry of Defence plans to award a contract worth up to GBP 17.5 million to Janes Group UK Limited for access to defence intelligence databases and analytical tools.
Defence Digital intends to establish a three-year Enterprise Agreement Lite with Janes covering software licences that provide access to the company’s open-source intelligence (OSINT) databases, taxonomies and analysis tools. The agreement will act as a mechanism through which licences can be purchased over the life of the contract.
According to the procurement notice, the contract is expected to run from March 2026 to March 2029 and will support defence users who rely on detailed open-source analysis of global military capabilities and equipment across air, land, sea and space domains.
The contract is being awarded through a direct award procedure. The Ministry of Defence said the decision was justified on the basis that Janes owns the intellectual property and proprietary databases underpinning the service and that there are no reasonable alternative suppliers providing equivalent coverage.
The notice stated that Janes provides what they described as the only comprehensive unclassified dataset of technical intelligence on global military equipment, alongside associated methodologies and classification systems used to organise and analyse defence data. Janes, headquartered in Croydon, publishes defence intelligence, analysis and databases used by governments, militaries and industry around the world.
There was a time when Janes would be asking the MoD for intel updates now it seems we will be paying Janes for the same updates, what a strange world we are living in!!!!
OSINT is a separate world these days, as so much can be found out without specialist assets. The number of people who collect information on their phones alone dwarfs the number of specialist resources MOD can afford to pay for except in tightly focused situations. Add to that commercial satellite feeds and ID tracking; OSINT soon grows to have a picture than rivals military intelligence in geographic coverage. It makes a lot of sense for MOD to seek out an up to date source that it can amalgamate with UK classified intel, five-eyes, etc. Also, OSINT is available to anyone, so it pays to understand the baseline of what an enemy might know about us.
While I agree with a good portion of what you are saying and indeed have/do use Janes a a reference to a lot of basic intel this is just anouther branch of the UK’s defences that has been privatised and although on paper it looks as though it is a good deal we have to question who profits from these private deals with the MoD like Landmark (running our training establishments) Serco (running our Blue ensign fleet and armed forces recruitment) The Bank of America has a good hold on most of our defence expenditure supporting the 401K retirement system in the US why are we not limiting the proffits earned by these companies to be spent in the UK on defence infrastructure (like British companies have to do when contracted to the US defence industry.
In the case of Janes it is owned by IHS Inc who’s major share holder at 18% is Wendel SE who is on paper a British company but 51% of its share holders are “Unmown” with the rest being mainly French and Scandinavian. The rest of IHS is owned by the same bunch of American share holders with the B of A being a prominent one so our hard earned tax £ is going to support foriegn national rather than being spent on UK infrastructure.
The UK has been paying Janes for OSINT for over a century. The book Jane’s Fighting Ships has been used by the Royal Navy since it first came out in 1898 and quickly became the go-to reference for spotting foreign fleets. When they started publishing air force and army equivalents, we also started buying them in bulk.
We’ve also had subscriptions with Janes since they digitised everything. What’s changed is the new deal is really just centralising access. Instead of each branch having its own subscriptions, the whole MOD can now tap into Janes’ OSINT databases and tools under one framework.
Analysts still do the intelligence work themselves; this just gives them a shared, structured reference library that would be impossible to build in-house at this scale. The US, NATO and most big Western militaries use Janes for OSINT.
As someone who uses Janes info myself and have seen just how our armed forces are hooked on Janes with a copy of Janes fighting ships aboard every RN vessel I understand what they bring to the table but paying this rather large sum of money into a private company who’s proffits disappear over seas must raise a few eye brows somewhere, I would have thourght, unless the eyebrows being raised are already share holders them selves.
Fair enough, I mentioned the government’s history with Janes because you seemed surprised in your original comment that we were paying them.
As for the price of this contract, I obviously don’t know the details either, but it does look like a lot. I’m sure there’s a bit of an ‘MoD Premium’ built in.
As you quite rightly pointed out we have been paying Janes for quite some time for products like Janes fighting ships but this is the privatisation of a whole area of what would traditionally be done by the MoD/CS/MI5/6 and the Police. So is this anouther cut back or are we going to retain the original people with Janes as an ad-on, the syndic in me tells me this is yet anouther cut in our abilities as a nation to defend our selves using the privatisation as a smoke screen.
Like in-flight refuelling, the blue ensign fleet, recruitment, maintenance of our training establishments all of which individually should not affect our war fighting ability but collectively if we went to war would these department function as intended, that is on top of what I have already mentioned above about the overseas share holders profiting from MoD expenditure with little to no money comming back into the system.
MI6, MI5 and GCHQ handle classified intelligence, human sources, signals intelligence, counterintelligence, and national security investigations. They operate highly secure, compartmentalised internal systems designed for sensitive information and covert operations. Janes’ OSINT is open-source and unclassified, providing public and commercially available data on foreign equipment, forces, and programmes. While useful for situational awareness and planning, it does not replace the specialised intelligence work these agencies do, nor does it provide access to classified or covert sources.
Police forces might use OSINT products like Janes in very specific situations, for example investigating defence procurement fraud, arms trafficking, or supporting joint operations with the MOD. In practice, however, most police rely on their own intelligence systems and open-source investigative tools.
So this is far from a job for the Police, MI6, MI5 or GCHQ, and would be a complete waste of their time and resources replicating something that already exists.
This contract is entirely focused on the MOD, which has had various subscriptions since Janes digitised their OSINT. This deal is just putting everything under one framework.
I get your point about the MOD privatising different capabilities in general, and there is real concern there, but that is a different argument.
Again you are right, but they also have to cross check their information with what is openly available, so do use OSINT if only to verify the info that they have comming in is based on reality not disinformation.
There are a number of UK private companies that already share intel with the MoD and as they are private companies there are no share holders so the money stays in the UK, granted they are not as big as Janes but given an MoD contract they could be and as most are run by Ex service personnel who still rightly or wrongly put the UK first rather than the money going into their pockets would be better value for money (in my opinion)
As far as being a diffrent argument, I believe the privatisation of the UK’s defence capabilities hinges on intel and by privatising the OSINT capability of the MoD we are now being given a guide dog that has been trained by people who are motivated by money not the good of the person using the guide-dog (again just my opinion)
Well, well, well.
£17.5M for a 3 year contract, approx £6M a year, so £500,000 a month, which is approx £16k a day. That is a lot of info 😃😃
Whatever happened to the OSINT Bunker? I miss that.
No doubt connected, within the Pathfinder Building, alongside the DIC, DIFC, NCGI ( all types of intelligence centres, including those with 5 eyes partners co located, including the US, who one poster was telling me we no longer share intell with, despite being embedded…) is another little known organisation called Defence Open Source Intelligence Centre.
I read the job description for it a few months ago, which is how I know of it’s existence.
As Jon says above, when utilised next to existing in house classified feeds, it all adds up.