The Growth of the G-Cloud Lots

Since its inception, which of the G-Cloud Lots have grown from strength to strength? Are there services being procured more than others? We've taken a look.

With G-Cloud 13 fast approaching, we’re reflecting on the growth of the framework. More specifically how each G-Cloud Lot has grown over the years! By delving into which ones are the most popular, and how much they’ve changed since the early days of the Digital Marketplace, we can hope to understand what could be in store for the 13th iteration of the Framework…

 

Which G-Cloud Lots are more popular?

Looking at the G-Cloud spend, it’s fairly clear that Cloud Support has generally been the most popular Lot on the framework, responsible for a whopping 65% – at the value of £6.7bn since 2013! Support is then followed by Cloud Software, making up 23% of spend at £2.4bn. Last but not least, Cloud Hosting contributes 12% of the spend through G-Cloud with £1.2bn!

 

How has spending increased by Lot over the years?

Breaking down the data year by year gives us an interesting look at how far we’ve come with the G-Cloud framework (hint: we’ve come very far!). Year on year we can see that the popularity of each Lot hasn’t changed; Cloud Support has always had more suppliers over the remaining Lots. The differences lie in the amount spent by buyers within each Lot – we’ve seen some serious growth in the last five years!

In 2015, £444m was spent on Cloud Support. In 2021, though, this rose to £1.5bn. Cloud Software has risen from only £58.6m to a huge £783m in 2021 – that’s an increase of over 1000%! Lastly, the Cloud Hosting Lot inflated from £67.9m to £244m in spend between 2015 and 2021. In just six short years, we’ve seen each Lot increase spending again and again. With G-Cloud 13 not set to buck that trend!

It’s worth pointing out that some 2021 deals may still be in the process of being finalised. So we’re not even expecting these to be the final numbers.

 

What does this mean for G-Cloud 13?

Patterns of spending up until this year have remained fairly consistent. So, we can most likely expect the general trends to continue into G-Cloud 13. Although different factors come into play – political and economic mainly – G-Cloud has remained a great way for suppliers to do business with the public sector.

With factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic throwing obstacles at UK procurement, we’ve still seen a rise in spend through the G-Cloud framework. As a flagship route to market for public sector buyers, We don’t think this will change at all any time soon.

Central Government are consistently spending the most through the framework, with the majority being spent through Cloud Support. Not far behind that is Cloud Software and we’re not expecting this to change. However, as G-Cloud and many of its framework siblings become more widely known within the public sector, we may see the different sectors using the framework increase. Exciting times as we approach the 13th chapter of the framework!