Throughout 2025, one of Mentor Digital’s core development priorities has been ensuring that our clients’ digital platforms remain secure, stable, and ready for the future. A significant focus of this work has been guiding organisations through the transition from older versions of Umbraco, many as far back as Umbraco 7, into the latest long term support (LTS) releases.

This has been a major strategic investment for both Mentor and our clients. By taking a proactive, partnership led approach, we’ve helped organisations modernise their technology stack while protecting their long term digital resilience.

A year dedicated to Long Term Support

Digital platforms rely on up to date, secure, and well supported CMS technologies. As Umbraco evolves rapidly, many older versions have reached end of life, meaning they no longer receive security patches or technical updates.

• Recognising the risk this posed to organisations, Mentor prioritised a structured, portfolio wide upgrade programme. Over the course of 2025, we:
• Upgraded clients from Umbraco 7 through to Umbraco 13, navigating the significant architecture changes required along the way.
• Migrated clients onto Umbraco LTS versions, ensuring they receive ongoing updates and extended support.
• Created forward looking upgrade roadmaps, preparing clients for future transitions, including planned work to help them adopt Umbraco 17 throughout 2026

These upgrades not only protect organisations but unlock performance improvements, scalability, and access to the latest editorial tools.

Supporting long standing clients through major transitions

We’re proud of the trusted relationships we hold with many long standing clients, relationships that played a major role in the success of our 2025 upgrade programme.

Our clients have successfully collaborated closely with us to plan and implement their transition to modern Umbraco builds, ensuring their digital platforms continue to confirm to modern security requirements. 

For some, this meant a full rebuild onto Umbraco 13. For others, it meant carefully staged upgrades, user experience enhancements, or preparing content and infrastructure for future changes.

Innovating through our extended SLA model

One of the most impactful developments this year has been the adoption of Mentor’s Extended SLA, a flexible support model that allows clients to pay a small additional monthly fee that is ring fenced for future upgrade work.

This approach:

• Removes the financial shock unexpected upgrade costs.
• Allows clients to budget predictably and spread the cost of technical improvements.
• Ensures platforms remain current, without delays caused by funding cycles.
• Builds trust and confidence that Mentor will always keep their technology safe and supported.

Long standing clients have embraced this model wholeheartedly, partnering with us not only on LTS upgrades but on a longer term vision for maintaining a modern, stable digital estate.
Our Extended SLA embodies what makes Mentor a trusted partner: we carry the risk and complexity, so our clients don’t have to.

Planning ahead: Umbraco 17 and beyond

Looking ahead to 2026, Mentor is already preparing the roadmap to transition clients from Umbraco 13 into Umbraco 17 LTS, ensuring they stay ahead of the technology curve.

Our forward planning approach means:

• No client is left on an unsupported platform.
• Every upgrade is scheduled, budgeted, and expected.
• Organisations can focus on delivering exceptional digital experiences while we manage the technical foundation.

A trusted technical partner

Our 2025 Umbraco upgrade programme reflects what Mentor values most: partnership, proactivity, and long term support. By investing in migrations, future proofing strategies, and financial models that remove risk for clients, we’ve strengthened our position as a reliable and forward thinking digital partner.