UK tech leaders stress cloud sovereignty and rapid cyberattack recovery expectations

A survey of 1,000 UK IT leaders commissioned by sovereign cloud provider Civo found that 73% now treat digital sovereignty as a strategic priority, up 12 points from the previous year. Sixty‑four percent consider continued reliance on a small number of global cloud providers unsustainable, while the proportion expecting deeper entrenchment in US hyperscalers rose from 12% to 28%. Only 15% have successfully migrated to a domestic alternative and one in four believe a full exit from major US clouds is possible. In the past year, 39% experienced outages caused by US hyperscalers, with 29% reporting direct financial losses and 40% facing costs over £50,000.

Research by Cohesity and OnePoll shows UK CEOs hold unrealistically high expectations for cyber‑attack response. Sixty‑seven percent expect breach notification within 30 minutes and 52% anticipate basic business operations resuming within a day. More than 80% say the senior person responsible could face career consequences if recovery is not rapid, and 20% link long‑term business impact directly to the CEO. Real‑world incidents, however, often take months to restore full operational capability.