Home Pricing Contact Sign in Try UMA for Free

The estate that teaches itself.

UMA Vision is the estate partner for air quality, space, energy and safeguarding across schools, colleges and university estates. Built on the Cisco network you already own. Twelve months to verifiable ROI.

The context

The estate is no longer invisible.

Three pressures are reshaping how education estates are run, and the building is now part of the answer to all three.
  • 01 Funding under strain

    Capital budgets are flat. Utility bills, insurance and staffing have risen. Estates teams are asked to deliver more with less.

  • 02 Attainment is measured

    Parents, governors and Ofsted ask harder questions about environment, attendance and wellbeing. The building is part of the answer.

  • 03 Net Zero is policy

    The DfE Net Zero strategy and the HE sector's own targets mean every Trust and university needs verifiable energy data, not estimates.

The problem

Eight problems, one estate.

The operational failures we see repeatedly in schools, colleges and universities. Fixing them is a budget and integration problem, not a problem of ambition.
  • 01
    Poor space use

    Rooms booked and empty, corridors full. Timetables don't match what actually happens on the floor.

  • 02
    Thin data

    Decisions made from timetables, not evidence. No live picture of how the estate is actually used.

  • 03
    Security gaps

    Unknown visitors, propped doors, no audit trail. Safeguarding evidence reconstructed after the fact.

  • 04
    Energy waste

    Lights and heating on in empty blocks. BMS and HVAC running to timetables, not occupancy.

  • 05
    Environment blind spots

    No one knows the CO₂ in Room 204. Ventilation set by assumption. Teachers as the first line of reporting.

  • 06
    Deferred maintenance

    Failures found by users, not systems. Reactive callouts instead of preventative cycles.

  • 07
    Scale pain

    New builds on modern BMS. Old sites on no BMS. No common data model across the estate.

  • 08
    Rigidity

    Each system speaks its own language. Point solutions fill one box and leave the others blind.

Our point of view

Four layers. One partner.

Every education deployment uses the same four building blocks. What changes is the estate, not the platform. UMA works alongside what you already have and integrates with what you add next.
  • 01

    Resource scheduling

    Rooms, desks, labs and lockers. Live availability, auto-release on no-show, occupancy-tied bookings.

  • 02

    Visitor and access

    Pre-registration, DBS verification, badge printing. Door integrity, RFID/BLE access, lone worker cover.

  • 03

    IoT and BMS

    EnOcean, BACnet, LoRaWAN, Modbus and MQTT. Any sensor, any BMS, any API the estate already owns.

  • 04

    AI and analytics

    Dashboards, reports and predictions on the data above. Energy, environment, utilisation and safeguarding in one view.

Architecture

UMA runs on your network.

Cisco access points become the IoT gateway. EnOcean data rides over the existing Wi-Fi. No dedicated IoT gateway required, no extra hardware to manage.
Network graph painted onto a floor plan, showing every device connected to every room
  • 01 Data flow

    Sensors → Cisco AP → MQTT → AWS. Dashboards, mobile app and scheduled reports.

  • 02 Reuse your Wi-Fi

    EnOcean rides over existing Cisco access points. No separate IoT estate to operate.

  • 03 Secure by design

    ISO 27001 certified. AWS-hosted. SSO via Microsoft or Google. SCIM for user lifecycle.

  • 04 Open standards

    EnOcean, BACnet, LoRaWAN, Modbus, MQTT. Any sensor, any BMS, any API.

Use cases

Three patterns, three wins.

Three patterns we deliver alongside education partners, from primary through to higher education. Each follows the same pattern: deploy, see, change, evidence.
  1. 01 Air quality & vape

    Safer classrooms. Safer toilets.

    UMA surfaces the air data the estate has always needed.

    Deploy

    UMA 9-in-1 IAQ sensor in classrooms, covering CO₂, TVOC, PM2.5, PM10, HCHO/O₃, temperature, humidity, light and PIR. Cisco Meraki MT15 in toilets for vape fume and noise detection.

    See

    Live heatmaps across every block and floor. Alerts when CO₂ crosses threshold. Vape incident alerts routed to safeguarding leads with timestamp and camera cross-reference.

    Change

    Ventilation strategies based on data, not assumption. Safeguarding evidence captured and audit-ready. Teachers no longer the first line of reporting.

  2. 02 Space utilisation

    Rooms that earn their timetable.

    Space utilisation tied to live occupancy recovers hours and removes conflicts.

    Deploy

    PIR and time-of-flight sensors, line-count counters, MT20 contact sensors on labs and specialist rooms.

    See

    Live occupancy vs capacity. Auto-release of empty rooms. Termly utilisation reports tied to your timetable.

    Change

    Reclaim rooms without building. Resolve clashes with evidence. Model rebuilds before capital commits.

  3. 03 Access & lone worker

    Visitors tracked. Staff covered.

    UMA replaces paper sign-in and radio check-ins with a single audit trail.

    Deploy

    Visitor management with NDA / safeguarding sign and badge printing. Door trip sensors, RFID/BLE access, LoRaWAN lone worker buttons.

    See

    Live visitor list. Out-of-hours door alerts to duty managers. Lone worker dashboard with missed-check-in escalation. Optional facial recognition.

    Change

    Safeguarding evidence is continuous, not episodic. Reception load drops. Investigations start with a timeline, not a paper file.

Outcomes

Eight outcomes, one partnership.

Drawn from UMA deployments across workspace, healthcare and education estates. Four for the estate team, four for the wider estate.
  • 01 Operational efficiency

    Optimised space and streamlined processes across the estate.

  • 02 Cost and energy savings

    Data-driven control of utilities. Verified kWh against baseline.

  • 03 Smart decisions

    Live analytics and reporting tools for SLT and governors.

  • 04 Scale that fits

    Platform grows with the estate: primary, secondary, FE, HE.

  • 05 Security and compliance

    Access control, safeguarding evidence, audit-ready monitoring.

  • 06 User comfort

    Air, light and booking managed together, for staff and students alike.

  • 07 Visitor and access

    Pre-approved entry, full audit trail, DBS-aware.

  • 08 Sustainability and ESG

    Green-target tracking. SECR- and ESG-ready reporting.

ROI pathway

Twelve months to ROI.

The same partnership pattern applied to every UMA estate. Each phase builds on the last, with shared reporting from week one.
  1. 01 Months 0–3
    Install and baseline

    Deploy sensors, integrations and data feeds. Set performance baselines. Capture occupancy, energy and environmental data.

  2. 02 Months 3–6
    Analyse and cross-reference

    Correlate datasets, highlight inefficiencies. Build ROI models. Share findings through dashboards and reports.

  3. 03 Months 6–9
    Automate and act

    Activate rule-based and AI-driven automations. Refine through feedback loops. Turn insights into operational change.

  4. 04 Month 12
    Measure and prove ROI

    Deliver measurable cost, energy and experience ROI. By month twelve the estate shifts from reactive to proactive.

Why partner with UMA

Evidence, not claims.

80+ customers across every continent. ~1M bookings processed. 50,000+ active users. ISO 27001 certified. UK-based, global delivery.
  • ISO 27001 certified
  • Cyber Essentials Plus
  • AWS UK-region hosting
  • SSO via Microsoft or Google
  • SCIM for user lifecycle
  • Encryption in transit and at rest

Start as partners.

One building, a clear baseline, and a twelve-month ROI model, delivered together.