2024 in review
Published by Matt Setchell on
Looking back at 2024 and into 2025

As we head into a new year, it’s always a good idea to reflect on the past 12 months. This falls into place nicely for me, as I celebrate 3 years at Concero UK on January 1st.
Getting started in a new company, is always a challenge. Learning new people and processes in a demanding environment that is ever changing is something I hadn’t really done for over 10 years – whilst my previous role had evolved, I was always leading that evolution, and direction – and so it’s safe to say I have learnt a lot over the past 36 months.
As a result of that learning, and support from the wider team, this year has seen some huge team success stories that I am proud to have been part of, and includes the groundworks for further growth and development into the future.
Below are some thoughts on what have been achieved in areas I oversee in my role and the wider industry, and also some thoughts as we head into 2025 – but there have also been some personal highlights this year – not least Edtech People.
My podcast has had some fantastic guests and is now sponsored by some fantastic partners – I have some great and engaging guests lined up for Season 4, starting in January.
With my eldest son starting Uni, my eldest daughter well on her way to her college course of choice, as well as my younger daughter and son both having many success stories to share it’s been a great year personally as well. My partner continues to provide such an important role in the community as a social worker, and has been promoted to showcase her hard work. With all the success in my blended family, I have to work hard to keep improving as well!
On a side note, from Mid January I may be a little quieter – as I have to have a minor op, or it may mean I have more time to ponder and write. Either way, my hope is to be fit and ready for BETT25!
Product Development
My role has evolved, as we all work together to understand our strengths, and this year saw me working with the wider team to develop a new product stack for the education and business teams. Evaluating and evolving current products, as well as introducing new ones that meet customer needs. Products such as the DfE Digital Standards Benchmark, with my colleague Tim – a easy way for schools to see where they stand against the standards, and next steps to develop their compliance. A key challenge here, was building a product that can easily scale to meet demand, in the most cost effective way possible.
We have also enhanced our backup offerings, with more defined products for backing up on-premise data, using a unified product that backups cloud data, simplifying management and delivery of crucial backups.
It’s also been great to work alongside the talented team at Salamandersoft to continue to develop our Automate partner product – now rolled out across all our schools – ensuring school’s user accounts are proactively created and deactivated, keeping consistency across multiple platforms, and saving 25% ticket load.
Projects
Projects are the bane of my life. Talking about, planning, delivering and evaluating them brings me joy as we see the transformation happen in front of our eyes, but the management of several projects and programmes of work, with multiple parties involved is often challenging, especially with a backdrop of tough financial climates for schools, and ever shifting management and their priorities.
When it works, the impact is huge. This summer, we delivered a huge project of change for a MAT, and in particular it’s secondary school – with infrastructure upgrades including the deployment of over 30 new switches, in 26 cabinets across multiple buildings – new fibres, 150 APs, new cloud based cashless catering, all new staff devices (moving from desktops to surface laptops), student device scheme, cloud migration and much more.
We have also delivered a complete new infrastructure for a primary school, to build on their success from the last 3 years, when they have gone from IT causing no end of issues, to a Showcase school, infact, we have done this in 2 showcase schools this year, thinking about it – with servers well and truly gone.
At another primary, we rolled out new switches, removed servers, deployed new devices for all staff – and I can’t wait to see the impact of this in the new year. All the works at the primary schools was delivered in term time, with minimum impact on T&L.
These are just some of the success the projects team has had this year, throughout a period of consolidation of roles within the team, the process and procedures we have in place, alongside my excellent colleagues have been instrumental in delivering some great project at the end of this year – so it will be exciting to see how this continues to develop and is refined.
Delivering Technical Support
Our team has resolved some 41,000 tickets across all our teams this year, hitting 95% for our resolution SLA . We have established some internal escalation improvements, with some great feedback internally – and on the impact delivered to customers as well.
But it’s an ever harder job supporting so many schools, in various stages of their journeys – gone are the days of standardised configurations of on-premise servers, and here are the horrible hybrids, across on-premise, and sometimes multiple cloud platforms. Challenges supporting schools moving away from legacy platforms, such as SIMS to enhanced and more efficient cloud platforms such as Arbor and Bromcom see’s the need to support transition from a range of products which used to support SIMS to be effective as well. And then you have those schools staying with SIMS, but wanting cloud solutions – which means using SIMS Connected, which, still requires on-prem equipment unless you move down the effective, but expensive, route of Azure Virtual Desktop.
As ever, the landscape of recruiting and retaining talent is challenging, education support cannot sustain the wages that staff can get by moving into corporate roles, and often the travelling between sites and lack of specialisms to focus on is not right for everyone. That said, we are exceptionally lucky that we have such a great team at Concero, and that we are able to support the development of talented staff throughout their careers, as well as enabling and encouraging those new into the game.
Demystifying
For some reason, whenever there is an event that needs someone to talk, my name is the one provided, and this year has given me some fantastic opportunities to speak to customers, colleagues and the wider industry – from the events Concero have put on, talking about AI, Cyber Security, ESafety, Windows 11 and cloud transitions to industry wide events such as a headline slot at The Schools and Academies Show, a panel at NASEN live, and speaking with customers at our stands at Arborfest, Nasen and SAAS respectively.
This alongside my podcast, Edtech People is vital for me to continue hearing about people’s experiences, and then to translate the needs into products, services, technical solutions and further assistance for those working with Concero, and the wider industry. But it’s not good doing just one of these in isolation, as I think working across them all, and with the team I work with, means that I can be authentic across all areas.
What’s next
2025 will continue to see some big shifts in the market, but a lot are continuations and evolutions of what we have seen this year.
- Continued shakeup in the MIS market and the cloud finance platform markets, with new entrants, mergers and acquisitions – these changes play a key role for us – because when schools see the possibilities of what these unified cloud products can deliver to them, anywhere, anytime in a cost effective way – they start to believe that there are serious benefits of doing this on a larger scale.
- Of particular interest will be
- how will SIMS move forward, and how many customer will wait for NextGen?
- How will Arbor manage multiple brands, and continue to integrate their AI tools into their products?
- What will be the impact of Bromcom supporting so many large MATs and councils?
- How will Arbor Finance compare to Bromcom’s school finance product, and will schools see these unified solutions as a winner against running multiple cloud solutions for core business as usual tasks?
- Of particular interest will be
- Integration of AI into everyday experiences – we know AI is coming, and we know it can help reduce workload, enhance data analysis and much more, but it’s still quite separate for many users – with Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s CoPilot both growing in their integration into core products – this year will be interesting to see the adoption levels of both platforms, as well as how other products integrate it – particularly MIS tools.
- Cloud Adoption and Windows 11 – many schools are going to have to spend on compatibility solutions for Windows 11 this year, that could be hardware, licencing or a more aligned move to the cloud that could actually end up saving money. Either way, if they go Google, or Microsoft – then this year we should see many schools climb out of the hybrid hell we are currently finding ourselves in – and many schools fully adopting the powerful cloud platforms – because right now many are only just at the tip of the iceberg.
- Wider awareness of Cyber Security, but from larger incidents – there is continued pressure and impact from Cyber Security breaches in education. In the UK, education is targeted more then anyone else – and whilst a move to cloud platforms will provide enhanced security, we all know that criminals are one step ahead. As more schools are targeted, awareness of a need to implement solutions designed with security at their heart, like we do with safeguarding will become more apparent.
Let’s not kid ourselves, schools are broke. Many are in sub-standard, often dangerous buildings. Many are understaffed. They are taking on the roles of a society that is chronically in decline when it comes to supporting families. Schools are taking on the role of healthcare through ever increasing SEND responsibilities, mental health crisis’s, are becoming social workers within their community. And that’s before you get into the challenges in teaching – whether that is the recruitment and retention of workforce, the everchanging structural layout of academies and LA backed schools combined with legislation within a new government. the challenges for learning, as a result of years of underfunding, and Covid are still being discovered.
The integration of new technology is key to supporting all these areas, understanding the data, enhancing collaboration and communication internally, externally, saving money through unified solutions, supporting SEND with personalised accessibility and plenty more are areas where technology really is excelling, when delivered from a solid infrastructure and secure and safe platforms, supported by staff that are responsive and engaged.