Last updated: 1 Dec 2025
Architecture of data.gov.uk
The data.gov.uk (DGU) platform is used to publish and view datasets. A dataset contains the metadata for a collection of links to data hosted somewhere on the internet.
Architectural overview of data.gov.uk
The original for this diagram is available in Google Drive and can be edited with draw.io.
Data.gov.uk is currently (as of Nov 2025) hosted in GOV.UK’s AWS infrastructure.
Organogram files are stored in S3 buckets. Transactional emails (eg password resets) are sent via the Amazon Simple Email Service (SES).
data.gov.uk Services
Services owned by data.gov.uk:
- CKAN is the publishing app for datasets (‘packages’).
- Find is the public frontend for viewing and searching for datasets (using Solr).
Services on data.gov.uk sub-domains, but owned by other departments:
- Statistics is owned by the Office for National Statistics and was established as part of the Open Data Policy.
- Environment is owned by DEFRA and was created as part of the Open Data Policy. Users with issues or questions should contact the maintainers
- Guidance is a set of manual pages hosted in GitHub.
- Business is a legacy redirect to Companies House.
CKAN and Find
CKAN and Find are hosted on AWS EKS and are maintained/deployed in the same way as most other GOV.UK applications.