Ordnance Survey Posts Record Revenue as Digital Transformation Accelerates
Key Takeaways
- •Ordnance Survey achieved record revenue of £199 million for the year ending March, representing a 2.1% year-over-year increase fueled mainly by growing public sector partnerships.
- •The agency's National Underground Asset Register has mapped 80% of Britain's buried utility infrastructure across 3.2 million kilometres and is already used by 70% of local authorities, with Openreach set to join the platform later this year.
- •Despite competition from Apple and Google mapping services, OS Maps subscribers increased by 6% to 536,000, and commercial use of its mapping products in the land and property sectors grew by 9% and 17% respectively.
- •OS supplies specialized geospatial data to government bodies including the Office for National Statistics and HM Land Registry, supporting applications such as flood vulnerability analysis for transport infrastructure and machine learning models for household parking assessment.
Ordnance Survey (OS), Great Britain's official mapping service, has reported record revenue growth as it positions itself against tech giants Apple and Google with what it calls the "most detailed digital map of Britain to date."
The agency posted a 2.1 per cent increase in revenue to £199m for the year ending March, buoyed primarily by its expanding public sector partnerships.
Long recognised for its paper maps, OS says it has transformed into a "data giant," supplying digital infrastructure to both government bodies and private-sector partners such as telecoms provider Openreach. That transformation reflects a broader trend among national mapping agencies, which are increasingly leveraging their authoritative, survey-grade geospatial data to serve digital economy needs that commercial platforms like Google Maps and Apple Maps—optimised for consumer navigation—are not designed to meet.
National Underground Asset Register
OS has mapped 80 per cent of Britain's buried pipes and cables through the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), a platform it developed for the government. The project has encompassed 3.2 million kilometres of pipes and cables to date.
According to OS, the register allows construction workers to plan projects around power and water infrastructure, helping to prevent delays and potentially life-threatening accidents. The initiative addresses a long-standing problem in the UK construction sector, where accidental utility strikes during excavation cause thousands of injuries and significant economic costs each year.
Openreach is set to be added to the NUAR platform later this year. The system is already used by 70 per cent of local authorities across Britain.
Supporting Government and Commercial Sectors
The mapping agency also provides data services to government bodies including the Office for National Statistics and HM Land Registry.
Applications of OS data include a tool that identifies road and rail lines vulnerable to flooding, as well as a machine learning model designed to determine which households in northern England have access to off-street parking—an example of how spatial data is being applied to infrastructure planning and climate adaptation.
Consumer Growth Amid Big Tech Competition
Despite the widespread use of mapping services from Google and Apple, OS reports continued growth in consumer adoption. Subscribers to OS Maps rose six per cent to 536,000 in the year to March. Commercial use of its mapping products in the land and property sectors grew by nine per cent and 17 per cent, respectively.
Nick Bolton, chief executive of Ordnance Survey, said: "This year marked the 225th anniversary of our first map, and today, OS continues to innovate to meet the evolving needs of the nation."
"This demand for trusted location data has delivered another year of growth, and with a six-year programme to build our data foundation now complete, our focus is now on making data more accessible to more people and organisations."
