More Than Half of UK Organisations Want Greater Cloud Control

New research from UK cloud provider Civo suggests that many organisations want greater control over where their cloud infrastructure and AI workloads operate.

According to the research, 66% of UK organisations would consider switching cloud providers to regain greater control. Yet only 15% have successfully migrated to a domestic alternative, highlighting how difficult cloud sovereignty can be to achieve in practice.

The findings point to a widening gap between strategic ambition and operational reality. Years of investment in hyperscale cloud platforms have made cloud infrastructure more capable, but also more difficult to move.

Sovereignty is Becoming Part of Infrastructure Strategy

Civo’s research found that 73% of UK organisations now consider digital sovereignty a strategic priority, an increase of 12 percentage points compared with last year.

The motivations extend beyond regulatory compliance. 64% of respondents believe continued reliance on a small number of global cloud providers is unsustainable.

Together, these findings suggest organisations are viewing sovereignty through a wider infrastructure lens that includes resilience, operational control and long-term technology planning alongside compliance.

AI is Exposing Infrastructure Dependency

AI appears to be bringing those considerations into sharper focus.

According to the research, 58% of organisations are concerned about the legal jurisdiction of their AI provider, while 43% believe AI workloads should remain within UK jurisdiction.

As AI becomes embedded across analytics platforms, software development, customer services and enterprise operations, infrastructure ownership and legal jurisdiction carry greater operational significance.

“AI has raised the stakes for digital sovereignty. The issue is no longer just where data is stored, but also where systems are built, who controls the infrastructure and which legal jurisdiction it falls under,” said Mark Boost, CEO at Civo.

The findings indicate that sovereignty discussions now extend beyond data location to include the infrastructure supporting AI services.

Ambition and Reality Remain Far Apart

The strongest finding in the research concerns cloud dependency. While 66% of organisations say they would consider switching cloud providers to regain greater control, only 15% have successfully migrated to a domestic alternative.

Just one in four believes it could leave a major US hyperscaler entirely.

At the same time, dependence continues to deepen. The proportion of organisations expecting to become more embedded within hyperscaler ecosystems has risen from 12% to 28% in a single year.

These figures illustrate the practical complexity of cloud sovereignty.

Migration programmes, application architectures, contractual commitments and technical dependencies all make infrastructure decisions difficult to reverse.

Dependency Carries Operational Consequences

The report also highlights the operational impact of cloud dependency.

Among organisations surveyed, 39% experienced outages linked to hyperscale cloud providers during the past year, while 29% reported direct financial losses. Of those affected, 40% estimated losses exceeding £50,000 ($66,360), while 5% reported costs above £1 million ($1.3 million).

Boost argues that these findings move the discussion beyond technology teams.

“When organisations cannot easily move workloads, fully see where their data is governed, or predict the cost of exit, cloud dependency becomes a board-level risk,” said Boost.

Resilience, portability, and operational visibility are becoming important considerations alongside performance and cost.

Sovereignty is Becoming a Question of Optionality

The findings also align with wider developments across the UK technology sector.

Investment in sovereign compute, AI-ready data centres and domestic digital infrastructure all reflect growing interest in expanding the range of infrastructure available to organisations.

This does not necessarily signal a move away from hyperscale cloud providers. It reflects a desire to retain greater flexibility over where workloads operate and how infrastructure decisions are made.

Cloud Strategy is Becoming a Question of Flexibility

The research suggests organisations recognise the value of greater control over cloud infrastructure and AI workloads. The more revealing finding is that many do not believe they can easily achieve it.

As AI becomes embedded across enterprise operations, cloud sovereignty is becoming closely linked to portability, resilience, and infrastructure choice.

For many organisations, the discussion is moving beyond where workloads run. It now includes how easily those workloads can move if business, regulatory or geopolitical conditions change.