The impact of the digital skills gap on cloud migrations

Migrating to the cloud should be part of any organisation's digital strategy, whether you're looking for better scalability, more automated business operations or quicker application deployment. There are countless benefits to cloud migrations and the future of cloud is incredibly exciting, with plenty of new technologies, like Serverless or Machine Learning, emerging within the cloud ecosystem. 

Moving to the cloud can also quickly provide net gains in areas such as:

- Revenue growth
- Cost reduction
- Increased profit
- Improved productivity
- Staff retention
- and more

So, what exactly is preventing UK SMBs and enterprises from making the move - particularly when the cloud provides so many advantages?

Challenges

There can be difficulties associated with the cloud migration process. The most frequently cited challenge is a gap in cloud skills or expertise within the business -  according to the 2022 Flexera State of Cloud Report, 84% of respondents felt that they lacked the skills or resources internally to deliver successful cloud migration.

This skills gap could present a number of migration challenges, including:

1. Costs

Cloud runs on a pay-as-you-go model which can dramatically reduce costs for your business. However, this model can also be a double-edged sword if you don't have a strategy around your cloud usage, and you can quickly incur unwanted costs if you don't have a clear understanding about your spending.

2. Security 

Many businesses cite security as a major concern of theirs, with this fuelling their apprehension about moving to the cloud. Without the correct know-how around data security, there is real risk of data loss and security breaches. This can be easily remedied within the cloud, as long as you know how to access the right tools and micro-services to secure your cloud environment.

3. Data Integration 

Data conversion can be complex and time-consuming. Moving data into new environments requires the right technical expertise in order to successfully transfer historical data into new environments which integrate properly with the cloud provider's data formats. 

The UK digital skills gap

One of the biggest challenges that UK industries are currently facing is a lack of adequate digital skills, and a shortage of IT developers. This is having a direct impact on UK digital adoption rates.

This lack of expertise and misunderstandings around cloud could also be fuelling fears around cost, security and integration, and, ultimately, preventing companies from moving to the cloud.

The digital skills gap means that many businesses are simply not equipped to carry out complex cloud migration projects. In fact, almost 1/3 of UK SMBs said that they were struggling with a lack of digital skills within their team, with 31% of survey respondents citing shortage of IT staff and lack of technical skills as their reason for not moving to the cloud ¹. 

With the correct expertise and knowledge provided by cloud partners and companies like Cloudsoft, your business could benefit from all of the advantages that the cloud has to offer, whilst significantly reducing risks and complexities.

How Cloudsoft can help

Cloud migrations can be complex, costly and confusing, and many companies find they need additional help to get their cloud environments up and running. 

At Cloudsoft, we provide expert-led services as part of our Tempo cloud consultancy service to help support businesses in every step of their cloud journey.

If you're concerned about the cloud skills gap, we can work with you to:

- Deliver 24/7 support post-migration to keep your environments well optimised and secure.
- Up-skill your team in areas where you're lacking expertise, for example Immersion Days on topics like Serverless and Containerisation.
- Assist with DevOps adoption and engineering tasks to make your teams' cloud journey as smooth as possible.

We provide the knowledge and expertise to de-complexify the migration process, cost-optimisation support, and 24/7 services to manage and maintain your cloud environments and incident resolution. 

Benefits of using an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner

Using an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner:

• Decreases operational costs
• Drives innovation
• Reduces security and compliance risks
• Develops skills
• Reaches desired business outcomes faster

Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been building and managing cloud environments since 2006. AWS have now been recognised as a cloud leader for the 12th consecutive year in a row in Gartner's Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services Magic Quadrant in 2022 . 

There are also plenty of tools and micro-services available within AWS to secure against ransomware. These include AWS IAM, AWS Network Firewall, AWS GuardDuty, AWS Cloudtrail and more. 

Get your free guide to cloud migration 

Spending on public cloud services is on track to hit $90.2 billion by 2023, driven in part by the migration of existing workloads from their traditional, on-premises environments. 

Cloud platforms hand organisations a vast new toolbox for rapid innovation, but how can you ensure your own migration project has buy-in from across your organisation? And how can you realise the true strategic value of migrating to the cloud?

In this Guide to Cloud Migration VP Engineering Aled Sage walks through the phases of strategy, adoption and implementation and provides detailed insights into successful cloud migration.

Complete the form to download your guide and start your migration journey. 

Sources

1. AWS, Panel presentation at DIGIT Expo November 2022 (Edinburgh).