Case Study: British Geological Survey achieves faster, more collaborative software development with GitLab Self‑Managed Ultimate

How British Geological Survey revolutionized its software development lifecycle

The British Geological Survey, a 185‑year‑old geosciences research organization with about 600 employees and offices in Nottingham and Edinburgh, faced poor visibility and siloed processes for software development—developers were using Subversion, there was no CI/CD, and scientists lacked easy collaboration with engineers. To accelerate collaboration, improve transparency, and keep code on-premises, BGS adopted GitLab Self‑Managed Ultimate from vendor GitLab as an all‑in‑one, self‑hosted platform.

GitLab delivered a single platform for source‑code management, integrated CI/CD, project tracking, built‑in security and Kubernetes integration, allowing developers and scientists to work together end‑to‑end. As a result, GitLab now supports about 200 users, hosts roughly 1,000 projects/components, and has run over 140,000 automated pipeline jobs—driving faster deployments, greater efficiency, organization‑wide collaboration and a professionalized software development lifecycle.

British Geological Survey

Wayne Shelley

DevOps integration leader