15 May 2018

The UK’s ranking improved substantially from ninth to fourth place in the 2018 Scorecard. (*These countries have largely changed rank due to BSA rebalancing its scorecard methodology.)

The UK now ranks fourth out of 24 leading IT economies, according to the 2018 Global Cloud Computing Scorecard from BSA – The Software Alliance. 

BSA compiles its index after tracking the evolution of the legal and regulatory environment for cloud computing in 24 countries, and asking 72 questions that are relevant to determining readiness for cloud computing.

For this year’s scorecard, Germany moved up from its previous third position to take the number one spot away from Japan (see chart above).

A small group of nations that have failed to embrace the international approach bring up the rear: Russia, China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The UK’s promotion from ninth to fourth has been driven by a number of factors. BSA says the country’s data protection laws are particularly strong, with regular enforcement.

However, it adds that businesses are required to register their data sets with the regulator, which seems to be an “unnecessary burden” on business and may act as a barrier to some cloud services.

The alliance also says the UK is updating its laws to reflect the provisions of the GDPR which comes into force in May despite Brexit.

Furthermore, the country is free from internet censorship and filtering, up-to-date laws are in place for e-commerce and electronic signatures, and it is a signatory to the Convention on Cybercrime. 

According to BSA, there is significant debate in the UK on the regulation of law enforcement access to data, and some proposals could have a potential negative effect on cloud computing.

It also points out that while advanced intellectual property laws are in place and are regularly enforced, there is still a gap in relation to trade secrets protection and enforcement.

BSA is a not-for-profit trade group made up of members of the software industry such as Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAS, amongst others.

The alliance releases its new Global Cloud Computing Scorecard every two years.