UK Government Western Europe’s Biggest Public Sector IT Spender

Along with being the five biggest Western European economies, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain are also responsible for the bulk of government IT spending in the region. Of them, UK’s public sector spends the most.

While UK spends the most, its spend doesn’t increase very quickly. IDC expects growth of German public sector’s IT spend to be the fastest, while IT spend by Spanish and Italian government agencies to decrease in the near future.

According to the latest IDC figures, combined, these countries account for 75 percent of the $53 billion Western Europe’s public sector spends on hardware, software and IT services annually. More than half of that spending is done by local governments.

Many European government organizations have been reviewing how much they spend on IT with noticeable effect. “Spending reviews have made an impact on UK, Dutch and Irish government IT spending,” Massimiliano Caps, an IDC research director, said in a statement.

“They are now affecting the Spanish government IT rationalization and consolidation strategy and are expected to push further cuts in Italy,” he said. “Those countries that have already implemented cost optimization are starting to rebound to make investments to take advantage of 3rd Platform technologies.”

IDC defines “3^rd Platform” as modern IT stacks built on mobile devices, cloud services, social networking technologies and Big Data.

The market research house expects government agencies to spend more on systems that support pension administration, tax and revenue collection in the near future. IT spending in public safety and security areas (with the exception of immigration control and border protection) is not expected to grow as quickly.