Is historical past repeating itself with the federal government’s push to open public sector cloud offers to SMEs?
The UK authorities is on a mission to loosen the grip that legacy IT suppliers have on public sector IT budgets, amid issues about how police forces, NHS trusts and native councils are wedded to suppliers whose choices are usually not good worth for cash.
Know-how secretary Peter Kyle outlined the federal government’s ambitions on this entrance throughout his look on the Google Cloud London Summit in July 2025, the place he talked about the necessity to rid the general public sector of the “ball and chain” of legacy tech and migrate extra of their purposes and workloads to the cloud. He stated it’s the Division for Science, Innovation and Know-how’s (DSIT’s) intention to “drag” public sector IT into the 21st century by forging nearer ties with cloud giants, resembling Google.
“My message to large tech firms is obvious: carry us your greatest concepts, carry us your greatest tech, and produce it at the perfect worth, and – in return – you will get entry to the largest shopper within the nation [the public sector], one which will likely be more and more clever and more and more digital,” he stated.
However it’s not simply the tech supplied by the hyperscale cloud giants that authorities desires public sector organisations to flee to, Kyle continued. He’s additionally eager for UK-based tech suppliers of all sizes to win their justifiable share of public sector contracts by way of their participation within the Nationwide Digital Trade (NDX) market.
Introduced in June 2025, the NDX platform is predicted to offer public sector organisations with entry to pre-approved expertise offers at nationally negotiated costs, whereas additionally permitting patrons to charge and assessment the companies they procure by way of it.
Pitched as an app retailer for public sector organisations, the federal government stated NDX will play a key position in supporting its aim of boosting small enterprise involvement in authorities contracts by 40% inside three years. DSIT claims the platform will unlock £1.2bn a yr in financial savings and modernise how public sector spends £26m a yr on expertise.
“The Nationwide Digital Trade will be certain increasingly UK tech firms can get their slice of [public sector IT spend],” stated Kyle. “Meaning more cash for firms working right here within the UK, [including] employees and founders.
“It should assist us obtain the financial development upon which Britain’s future prosperity lies, and it’ll enhance the general public companies on which British programs rely.”
Historical past repeating
In abstract, the federal government desires public sector patrons to save cash by ditching legacy suppliers and shifting to the cloud, whereas providing them entry to a web based market the place they will simply procure the services they want from each hyperscale, abroad tech corporations and homegrown suppliers.
For individuals who have adopted the general public sector IT marketplace for the previous 15 years or so, a few of what the federal government is proposing could sound acquainted, because the founding goals of NDX are similar to these of the G-Cloud framework.
The latter buying settlement made its debut in 2012, pitched as a procurement car that will enhance the variety of IT suppliers serving public sector organisations and would enhance the variety of small and medium-sized IT suppliers successful enterprise with them.
On the time, the IT provider panorama was dominated by a handful of programs integrators and enormous, legacy tech suppliers that stood accused of locking public sector organisations into prolonged and costly contracts.
G-Cloud was hailed because the treatment to that in a lot the identical method that NDX is being spoken about immediately, besides G-Cloud launched a brand new method for public sector organisations to obtain IT companies – and there was no different framework prefer it on the market.
The companies listed on it, for instance, have been pre-approved and transparently priced to make sure all public sector customers have been charged the identical. Contract lengths have been initially capped at 12 months to protect towards provider lock-in and to encourage competitors.
Through the years, the phrases and circumstances that G-Cloud operates underneath have markedly modified from when it was initially launched, and the federal government is at present within the throes of getting ready to launch the framework’s 15th iteration in spring 2026.
In gentle of all that, the query is whether or not the federal government is risking duplicating effort by concurrently engaged on the roll-out of NDX on the similar time, given each procurement automobiles seem – not less than on paper – to be intent on attaining the identical factor.
Nicky Stewart, senior adviser to Open Cloud Coalition (OCC), which is an advocacy physique calling for the creation of a various and aggressive European cloud market, stated DSIT’s imaginative and prescient for NDX does sound promising.
“The OCC welcomes any initiative that goals to open up the federal government digital market to new gamers – whether or not they’re SMEs, homegrown suppliers or challenger suppliers,” she instructed Laptop Weekly. “A various market is a wholesome and resilient market. We urge all suppliers with an curiosity to get behind this essential initiative to assist DSIT realise its ambitions.”
Nevertheless, Owen Sayers, an unbiased safety architect and knowledge safety specialist with an extended historical past of working within the public sector, has some reservations about what it’s the authorities is attempting to attain with NDX.
Earlier than floating the concept that DSIT may very well be lining up NDX to ultimately change G-Cloud, Sayers stated that he can not see how working each frameworks side-by-side will likely be commercially viable long run.
“If each frameworks run, the civil servants will default to what they know, and what they know is G-Cloud, and NDX will likely be doomed to failure,” he stated.
Whereas this would possibly sound like scaremongering, it’s value taking into consideration the roll-out of the primary iteration of the hyperscale-focused Cloud Compute framework in 2021. This was launched as a substitute procurement car for public sector IT patrons that had large-scale cloud initiatives to ship that had beforehand been pushed by way of the extra SME-focused G-Cloud framework.
A Laptop Weekly investigation later revealed that simply £750,000 of enterprise had seemingly been put by way of the primary iteration of the Cloud Compute framework, with sources claiming this was because of the reality public sector patrons discovered G-Cloud extra acquainted and simpler to make use of.
“If NDX is the ‘new factor’, the federal government might want to tender it – with phrases appropriate for that sort of aggressive feedback-driven market – and, having completed so, will presumably retire G-Cloud,” stated Sayers.
If this sequence of occasions does come to go, it may take a number of years earlier than the monetary advantages generated by NDX are realised, provided that contracts called-off underneath G-Cloud might be as much as 48 months in size, he added.
“Many authorities companies can have forward-committed spend contracts underneath G-Cloud, they usually received’t need or be capable of change them,” he stated. “Cancelling stay G-Cloud contracts will incur large prices – definitely sufficient to wipe out a £1.2bn saving – and they also will persist for his or her full contract time period.
“It should take two-to-four years for NDX to interchange G-Cloud and acquire traction, and we’re unlikely to see any good thing about such a change within the lifetime of this parliament [given the G-Cloud contract lengths] and nor are the federal government more likely to see lots of these projected financial savings.”
Laptop Weekly put Sayers’ issues to DSIT, and a spokesperson responded with the next assertion: “The Nationwide Digital Trade builds on G-Cloud’s success whereas introducing AI-powered provider matching, real-time person critiques and pre-negotiated offers that slash procurement time from months to hours – delivering £1.2bn annual financial savings.
“G-Cloud stays an essential procurement route alongside NDX, with clear pricing and capability-based matching guaranteeing SMEs can compete on innovation quite than administrative complexity. The platform is designed to open the market to extra UK tech corporations, with a goal to spice up small enterprise involvement in authorities contracts by 40% inside three years.”
No checks or balances
Even so, Sayers has some misgivings in regards to the strategy DSIT is taking with NDX: “Principally, it appears like they’re attempting to streamline selections that already endure from far too little diligence, and the trade-off of centrally negotiated common offers is that the NDX will undoubtedly be made up of generic commodity merchandise.”
With its emphasis on providing public sector patrons entry to pre-approved expertise offers, there may be additionally a concern that the federal government could be taking a “one-size-fits-all” strategy with NDX, which hardly ever works within the public sector, he continued.
“There appears to proceed to be a scarcity of appreciation in central authorities that every division is totally different, every vertical a part of authorities is totally different, and every nation within the UK is totally different by way of their relevant laws, regulation, wants and types of supply,” stated Sayers.
Mark Enhance, CEO of London-based cloud companies supplier Civo, instructed Laptop Weekly that he’s broadly supportive of what the federal government is attempting to do with NDX, significantly its pledge to champion homegrown IT suppliers by way of the initiative.
Nevertheless, given how a lot enterprise the UK authorities already places the way in which of huge tech suppliers, resembling Amazon Internet Providers (AWS), Microsoft and Google, he has reservations about how DSIT will guarantee a stage enjoying subject for all suppliers who take part in NDX.
“Any initiative explicitly aiming to make it simpler for UK tech suppliers of all sizes to win authorities contracts is value celebrating,” he stated. “If the coverage really manages to develop and preserve applicable safeguards to make sure a stage enjoying subject for British tech, then we will anticipate an enormous enhance to our homegrown tech ecosystem. That stated, DSIT’s obvious enthusiasm for ‘large tech’ will give many UK IT leaders pause.”
Notably in gentle of how entrenched the cloud applied sciences of AWS and Microsoft, particularly, have change into throughout the public sector since each events opened their UK datacentre areas in late 2016. On the time, the UK was dwelling to a thriving ecosystem of homegrown SME cloud suppliers, lots of whom have been efficiently promoting their wares by way of the G-Cloud framework to the general public sector.
Nevertheless, over the months and years, the variety of these SMEs in operation started to dwindle – as some went out of enterprise or merged with others – as extra of the general public sector offers they beforehand secured went to AWS and Microsoft as a substitute. A lot so, AWS is now the highest vendor of cloud companies to the general public sector by way of the SME-focused G-Cloud framework, with the federal government’s personal Digital Market figures placing its complete spend by way of the framework at greater than £1bn.
And having a lot of the UK’s public sector IT infrastructure hosted within the clouds of US-based cloud suppliers is a danger, stated Enhance, including: “Counting on a handful of abroad suppliers for our digital infrastructure presents a considerable danger, particularly when adjustments within the geopolitical winds can lead to sudden software program sanctions and shutdowns.
“On high of this, the US Cloud Act stays in pressure, and any giant US supplier concerned in public sector IT would possibly, at any time, be compelled at hand over British residents’ delicate data to US regulation enforcement. Correct consideration for the UK’s thriving cloud and AI ecosystems will assist to rectify this – and I hope the NDX will stay as much as its guarantees.”
