Most UK firms face technical debt: Report
Manufacturing, finance, and government are the most impacted sectors
Technical debt, the hidden costs and risks created by the delayed update and modernisation of IT systems, is affecting 90 per cent of UK firms.
This is according to Cloudhouse’s State of Technical Debt report, based on a survey of 250 CIOs, risk and compliance managers, and heads of IT.
The report also revealed that only ten per cent of organisations are free from Windows technical debt, and just 31 per cent are free from Linux technical debt.
This comes as the deadline for Windows 10 end of life is set for 14 October.
The most impacted industries are manufacturing (92 per cent), finance (89 per cent), and government (83 per cent).
Technical debt has already affected British companies, with 51 per cent of them reporting experiencing system downtime linked to the issue.
And the impending end-of-support for Windows 10 in the UK is set to exacerbate the issue.
UK companies will not be able to leverage Microsoft’s U-turn decision to extend Windows 10 security updates by an additional year for customers in the European Economic Area (EEA), as the country stepped down from the international agreement following Brexit.
Only 14 per cent of organisations are prioritising investment in fixing legacy systems.
Compliance is also a challenge, with 41 per cent of businesses declaring that regulatory compliance has become harder to maintain because of reliance on legacy Windows systems.
Windows technical debt is also cited as a major barrier to cloud adoption and digital transformation, with 45 per cent saying it constrains their ability to move forward.
In a recent research from Sapio, commissioned by Crayon, it was revealed that 94 per cent of IT leaders are facing challenges to optimise cloud costs.
31 per cent of respondents to the Cloudhouse report believe Windows technical debt prevents innovation, while 35 per cent say it contributes to employee burnout or stress, and 34 per cent link it to higher staff turnover.
“Technical debt isn’t just a tech problem, it’s a business risk, a security gap, and a human cost,” said Mat Clothier, CEO of Cloudhouse.
“The fact that 90 per cent of organisations are still carrying Windows technical debt, so close to the end of life of Windows 10, should be a wake-up call.
“Awareness is high, but action lags far behind.
“Unless organisations address this now, the costs will only increase.”