AWS report highlights the importance of cloud computing in UK economy

16 Sep 2020 04:27 PM

Today AWS has released their new report which helps explore the social, environmental and economic implications of cloud technologies.

A report published today by AWS has outlined the social, environmental and economic benefits and impact of cloud computing in the United Kingdom. This report outlines the positive impact of cloud, both in the short term as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the long-term as the UK develops a world-leading tech sector. This reports helps envision a UK economy powered by cloud services by highlighting the increasingly crucial role of cloud technologies over the last fourteen years.

The report focusses on the positive impact of cloud that AWS has seen  on the economic growth of small businesses, particularly scale-ups. Companies with more than ten employees have grown at a rate of faster than 20% a year over the past three years and are responsible for most of SME growth.  As such, the report showcases that widening access to scalable cloud technologies has a positive impact on the business objectives of scale ups. One survey in the report highlights that 94% of scale-ups used one or more cloud services and up to 75% agree that the use of cloud platforms has made it possible for them to take their business global.

The public sector is also highlighted as a specific area of opportunity for cloud services. The combination of cloud platforms like AWS and initiatives like the UK’s G-Cloud have made it far easier for small businesses to bid into government which has helped drive significant savings for the public sector, saving an average of 20% compared to past regimes. techUK has previously recognized the role of cloud technologies in helping  government bodies and agencies to modernise outdated legacy systems and applications to deploy advanced and innovative digital public services, and welcome further innovation by cloud that is discussed in the report.

You can learn more about the impact of cloud computing for public sector innovation in techUK’s Building a Smarter State conference 16-17 September.

The report also highlights the role  cloud computing can play in reducing energy usage and helping to support sustainability. This is an important issue that techUK explored at the end of 2019 through a discussion paper outlining the need for greater transparency in attributing carbon to cloud services. We will be continuing the conversation on the 1st October in the online webinar: How do we build a sustainable cloud? In its report, AWS predict that moving a company’s IT workload to the cloud can reduce its carbon footprint by 88%. It also highlights that UK customers of AWS have saved over 200,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, the equivalent of planting an extra 400 million trees. Cloud computing can have a long-term positive impact on sustainability and the cloud market must continue to champion a net zero carbon economy, as well as encouraging open dialogue between end-users and suppliers on carbon impacts. 

The full AWS report can be found here.