Your university runs on 12 platforms.
Your applicants don't care.

UK higher education is drowning in CMS sprawl. It is costing budget, brand control and compliance.

Acquia Source consolidates the estate. Axelerant makes it happen.

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See The Diagnosis

The state of UK higher education digital estates

Three numbers every VC and CMO should know.

91%

UK universities cyber breached in past 12 months

Each one with its own licence, hosting bill, and security posture.

Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025, Education Institutions

Of education URLs pass Google Core Web Vitals.

Your prospective students notice before your IT team does.

BrightEdge / Search Engine Journal analysis of Google CrUX data

£1M

Annual digital estate spend at top UK institutions.

Most of it maintaining fragmented legacy platforms.

Composite of UK university digital investment reports

This is not just technical debt

It is showing up in every conversation your leadership team is having.

It's clearing week and our microsite is down.

Your campaign site runs on a different CMS, with a different agency and a different contract. UCAS handled 110M hits in results season with zero unplanned outages.

Our accessibility audit flagged 40 sites. We patched 3.

PSBAR is in effect. With Acquia Web Governance, Bayer lifted accessibility 20% across 500+ sites in 90 days — one release, all sites.

Marketing wants a research centre site. Dev is booked until Q3.

Every new microsite becomes a development project. AI Site Builder can stand up a new site in days, not quarters.

We're paying for 5 CMS licences, 3 hosting contracts and 4 retainers.

Estate audits routinely surface 3–5 CMSes and 400+ sub-sites. The hidden total cost is usually larger than any single line item.

One partnership, end to end

A consolidated answer to platform sprawl.

Acquia brings the platform and product. Axelerant brings the expertise, AI-native engineering, and continuity of delivery. Together, they move your estate from many stacks to one governed operating model.

Before

Many agencies. Many stacks. No single view.

Sites get assigned by who happened to build them, not by how they should be governed.

Agency A

WordPressWixBiz LawArtsClearing Open DayCareers

4 sites

Agency B

Drupal 7SharepointSci HumLibraryFinance HR

5 sites

Agency C

SitecoreCustom PHPMed AlumniEstatesEdu Comms

3 sites

In-House + Freelance

SquarespaceGhost + HTML Research AResearch B IntranetChem LabStudent U+16

4+ sites

After

One agency. One platform.
One place to govern.

Same faculties, departments and campaigns — now in a shared foundation with a shared compliance posture.

BizLawArtsMed EngSciHumEdu LibraryFinanceHRIntranet AlumniGivingEstatesComms ClearingOpen DayResearch A+16

One platform. Every site. Built for higher education.

The leading open digital experience platform — trusted by 1,200+ organisations worldwide.

Drupal-based

Cloud + AI + DAM

Six capabilities that change the economics of a digital estate.

AI Agents built in

Governance, Content Writing, SEO and EU compliance agents work alongside your team — no extra licences to chase.

AI Site Builder

Stand up a new site in days, not quarters. Marketing ships without a development queue.

Centralised Dashboard

One view across every property: performance, usage, health, risk and governance.

Drag-and-Drop Editing

Faculties and departments edit in context while AI drafts the first pass.

Role-Based Permissions

Central brand control with decentralised publishing. No more shadow sites.

Compliance Layer

WCAG 2.2 AA, PSBAR and GDPR primitives baked into the platform layer.

01

Platform Expertise

Hundreds of Drupal and Acquia deployments across regulated sectors including higher education and public services.
02

AI-Native Engineering

Code Agents, Design Agents, Marketing Agents and Growth Agents reduce coordination overhead and accelerate delivery.
03

Peace of Mind, End to End

Audit to migrate to optimise. One team, one continuity of care, one governance model.
04

Innovation Lab for Higher Ed

Co-creating AI solutions such as student chatbots for course queries, applications, funding calculations and faculty connections.

Proof in the sector

What consolidation actually looks like in the sector.

Real engagements, real numbers — with UK higher education leading the row and sector-adjacent proof points alongside it.

Sitecore → Drupal + Acquia, Delivered by Axelerant.

Non-technical staff publish via drag-and-drop. Geo-personalisation serves 17,000+ students from 100+ countries. Shortlisted for Times University of the Year.

+73%More applications

+32%Enrolment increase

110M Hits, Zero Unplanned Outages.

The UK university admissions service migrated from an in-house CMS to Drupal on Acquia Cloud Platform.

92%Applicant satisfaction

95%Adviser satisfaction

Reusable Components and Editorial Simplification.

Drupal + Acquia Cloud Platform with Salesforce integration and multilingual support, reducing editorial forms from 250 to 30.

94Accessibility score

0.74sFCP page-load

Ready to see your estate on a single platform?

Book a free 30-minute consultation or request a no-obligation digital estate audit. Pick whichever matches where your university is today.