Forrester has published the report “The State of European Cloud, 2022” in which our analysts highlight the latest trends in European enterprise cloud usage.

The report’s findings show that cloud usage is alive and well in the European cloud market. As the pandemic starts to resolve and conflict in Eastern Europe builds, enterprises are revisiting their cloud strategies to optimise for cost and resilience while ensuring that they meet the latest European regulations.

Highlights of the research include:

  • More than 50% of European enterprise decision-makers use a public cloud platform with 87% of European enterprises using multiple public cloud platforms
  • Infrastructure decision-makers at European enterprises claim 41% of their total application portfolio is in the public cloud
  • 56% of infrastructure decision-makers at European enterprises say that modernization is their top priority. Firms are implementing a mix of tools such as Kubernetes, cloud-native services, and AI/ML to rework their apps.
  • Cloud native is becoming the new normal. Forrester data shows that 22% of European developers report regularly using containers on a public cloud for development

A country specific focus shows that:

UK regulations settle close to EU standards. In general, the UK government has been an aggressive cloud adopter with its Cloud First policy that it launched in 2013. Due to Brexit, the UK defined its own regulatory laws in 2021 and 2022; however, the outputs are very similar to the EU.

Germany focuses on privacy. The country continues to maintain more stringent standards than those of the EU. For example, Germany banned digital health apps from transferring health data outside the EU and mandates minimum cybersecurity levels from cloud service providers. T-Systems remains the primary German-based cloud provider.

France and Italy seek in-country reinforcement. France and Italy prioritize in-country cloud solutions to reinforce the positive economic impacts and protection of citizen interests against foreign data laws. France launched its Cloud de Confiance label for CSPs, requiring built-in infrastructure and extensive security audits specific to France and separate from EU mandates.

If interested in accessing this research and connecting further with a Forrester analyst, please reach out to press@forrester.com.