UK IT Services Growth Powered By Public Sector

Growth in the UK IT sector is largely powered by the government’s digital strategy and opening up public sector technology contracts, a new report has claimed.

Computer Services, a new report from market intelligence provider Key Note, was released earlier this week and estimated that the market for the provision of computer services in the country had grown by 2.8% in 2013.

The firm claims the industry saw “healthy growth” from 2011 to 2013 as a result of the economic recovery and continued computerisation of the workplace. Besides this, there has been increasing demand for efficient, streamlined IT system in all industries, the report’s authors believe.

However, according to the research, it is public sector demand that has really fuelled the growth of the IT sector, as the government continues implementing its digital strategy.

Whitehall is currently attempting to roll-out digital transactional services across its seven central departments handling the vast majority of government-related transactions, while streamlining internal systems.

Meanwhile central government claims to be committed to opening up public sector IT contracts to provide greater access for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) – the aim is for 50% of government contracts to be awarded to SMEs.

According to Key Note, this provides huge growth opportunities for smaller businesses providing IT services and in turn, the industry as a whole.

The technology sector has experienced a number of positive boosts recently, for example, with IT contractors predicting a third consecutive pay rise in as many years.

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