UK puts £14B cloud framework in place with SMEs promised a bigger slice
The UK government has launched G-Cloud 15, a new public-sector cloud procurement framework estimated to handle £14 billion of spending over four years. It combines several previous cloud agreements into one marketplace for hosting, software and support, with the stated aim of simplifying purchasing and helping smaller British suppliers compete for government contracts.
Around 90 per cent of suppliers admitted to the framework are SMEs, though inclusion does not guarantee work; annual spending through it is expected to be roughly £3 billion, and contracts may last up to 60 months. The government has introduced revised service classifications to make suppliers easier to find, but doubts remain over whether this will materially shift business from dominant providers such as AWS and Microsoft Azure, which are estimated to hold about 80 per cent of the UK cloud infrastructure market.
- G-Cloud 15 could channel £14 billion of public cloud spending.
- SMEs make up about 90 per cent of listed suppliers.
- Major US cloud providers are still expected to dominate.
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Cloud computing means using computing power, data storage and software over the internet instead of running everything on an organisation’s own equipment. UK public bodies use it for services ranging from websites and email to storing records and analysing data.
G-Cloud is a government purchasing arrangement that lets public-sector organisations buy approved cloud services from a list of suppliers. It is intended to reduce the need for each organisation to run a separate procurement process, while setting common terms for providers.
The main suppliers include large international companies such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, alongside many smaller UK technology firms. Smaller businesses are often described as SMEs, meaning small and medium-sized enterprises; the framework is significant because public-sector contracts can provide substantial, long-term business.