Secure Data Environment roadmap

Future changes planned and past changes delivered for the National Record Locator.

Roadmap

The product roadmap outlines current and upcoming projects with timelines and key objectives.

The roadmap was last updated on 20 April 2026.

Introduction of strategic 'Bring your own data' service allowing our users to import research (record level) data into the NHS England SDE.
Build of improved Import reference data function through a fully transparent end-to-end workflow tool.
Reduce cycle time for adding new packages; change ways of working to streamline this current issue for our users.

New management information reports available via the SDE portal allowing our users to download latest user account details, user login activity, DBU consumption and latest storage figures.
Addition of new Import code feature.

User Managers can now activate and deactivate Stata access for users and search for users who have Stata access directly within the existing Manage User tool. This gives User Managers more control over access to Stata without needing to raise a support request. See the user management guidance for more information on how to use the new feature.
Implemented agreement selector improvements to remove throttling and access issues when switching between agreements.

S3 synchronisation issue fix delivered. The implementation has resolved the issue of files being deleted as part of this process.
NHS design system updated within our internal systems allowing service to use the latest components as part of design.
Agreement selection page updated - introduced a new user interface to facilitate selection of an agreement during sign in.

A reporting layer with full automation fully implemented covering management information reports. Will be used as a basis for the introduction of customer facing reporting in 2026.
Internal improvements made to the Output Checking tool used by our Checking team. Addition of bulk assign functionality to improve productivity and boost scalability for future demand.
Graphframes package made available for a user in the SDE.
Implementation of VDI Shroud - introduction of a new splash screen that will allow the jobs to complete in the background while blocking users access to the desktop to avoid access issues.
Removal of Immuta as a tool to manage data and access, this was replaced with Databricks functionality via Unity Catalogue.

Increased import file size to 2GB for reference data. For more information on this service see Import reference data.
Removed the 1,000 row and 30 column limits on submission of output requests. For more information see Output your results.
Prophet package in RStudio now available from package manager.

Lifecycle policies implemented at platform level to reduce SDE service digital footprint.
Stata stns package added to SDE.
Python packages pygam and stepmix now available in package manager.
R package 'GJRM' added to the SDE Package Manager.

The R package astsa added to the SDE Package Manager
The Stata package lassopack added to the VDI.
Endogeneity, micsr and Rchoice added to the SDE Package Manager. Note that as endogeneity and micsr require compilation the binary version of these will need to be used in RStudio Desktop as rtools is not installed on the VDI.

The following R packages were added to the SDE package manager: mvmeta, survRM2 and afcharts.
Minor bug fixes for package manager.

Updated pricing information on user portal following annual price change.
Update to error messaging on user portal when user tries to set up a new account and already has an account.
Complete the deployment to Prod for the Password reset/set-up work.
Python package pysal and R Packages (peakRAM, logistf, rio, here, skimr, rstatix, janitor and scales) were added to the package manager in SDE.
Bug fix implemented resolving an issue with emails/processing for the Import reference data process.

New user setup journey live - providing an easy-to-use step by step process to setup a new user account. For more information see the guidance at NHS England Secure Data Environment set-up guide.

User management portal live. Allows users within an agreement to add and manage their users over the lifecycle of their agreement duration. For more information see NHS England Secure Data Environment user management guide.

Output checking tool live. Allows users to submit and track output requests from start to completion. For more information see Output your results.

Last edited: 20 April 2026 1:57 pm