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10/10/24, 2:49 PM Red Hat Survey: AI is a Driving Force Behind UK Cloud Strategy as well as the Top Skills Gap | WebWire
Red Hat Survey: AI is a Driving Force

Behind UK Cloud Strategy as well as the

Top Skills Gap

Nearly all UK IT managers surveyed (98%) state cloud investment is an
organisational priority for 2025, with AI a leading driver for 88% and an urgent
skills gap for 81%

LONDON – WEBWIRE – Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source
solutions, today announced new survey results highlighting key
drivers for cloud strategies over the next 18 months. Preparing
for AI adoption was cited as a priority for 88% of UK
respondents, almost level with cloud-native application
development and DevOps (89%) and evolving cloud strategy in
line with business objectives (89%).

98% of UK IT managers see advantages in adopting enterprise
open source solutions for AI, including predictive and
generative. Accelerating innovation is seen as the top benefit of
enterprise open source AI in the UK (53%), with cost-efficiency
coming in second place (50%).

The research surveyed 609 IT managers from large businesses (500+ employees) across six countries:
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UAE and the UK. It explores the priorities and challenges for IT managers
as they navigate cloud complexity and the opportunities and barriers they face in executing AI strategies.

Key UK-specific findings include:

Almost all UK IT managers surveyed (98%) consider cloud technology investment a priority for
2025. 28% are planning a strong focus on innovation and new technologies, while 61% expect balanced
growth between new technologies and enhancements to existing systems. Of this subset of
respondents, over half (53%) plan to increase their investment by 21-50%.
81% of UK respondents agree that there is an urgent skills gap in the area of AI – including data
science, large language model (LLM) and generative AI – making it the top ranked skills gap. This
number is up from 72% in 2023. Other urgent gaps include cybersecurity (75%), and strategic thinking
and ability to tackle business-level issues (68%).
When asked about the advantages in adopting enterprise open source solutions for AI – including
predictive and generative – more than half of UK IT managers surveyed (53%) cited accelerated
innovation, alongside cost-efficiency (50%), and trust and transparency (43%).

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