England, Ireland, Wales and North Ireland, together form the United Kingdom. The economy of this region took a hit after World War II despite the victory and left the country into a fix that took about 40 years to emerge from. Today, the United Kingdom is the world’s 7th freest economy and Europe’s 3rd with a freedom score of 79.3.
The pandemic has brought the country to a sudden halt in 2020’s second quarter and post. The GDP decline was by 2.2% initially, then worsened 20.4% as the year went on. Nordeatrade.com believed it to be the worst recession since World War II. Things are to pick up again in 2021 with a greater speed but the growth rate is suspected to suffer a decline as the demand of the public and buyer demands initially bounces back with fervour and then retreats to a normal pace, a slower one. According to the European Commission, the recovery by the end of 2022 will still be 5% lower than the last quarter of 2019.
Moreover, the contribution of the cloud computing market to the GDP is massive with the UK ranking 4th on the cloud computing scoreboard and ranking second after the U.S as the exporter of ICT services. IaaS among them is said to be leading the segment as larger businesses have looked favourably to cloud infrastructures in the UK. Post pandemic, small businesses have also sought out this solution, making the cloud computing market explode.
The UK is set to reach higher on the global cloud computing market as many businesses, Asian or from the United States, when looking to expand look favourably to the UK as their home base which gives a cloud boost to the region. London is the home to bases liked Amazon, Microsoft and more which attracts many other businesses to the region. This results in an increase in technological dependence and hence boosts the ICT sector of the UK.
The terrain for businesses is rapidly changing as the pandemic has forced the hand of even the most traditional organizations to adopt and trust technology as their partners. The Information and Communication Centre has benefited from the change of tide and has helped in keeping the economy running by fulfilling import and export cloud requirements. As the times normalize once again, the ICT sector is set to come out on top.