The UK government is extending two major cloud purchasing agreements due to delayed replacement arrangements under frameworks that could be worth an additional £1.65 billion.
The cloud services framework deals – which allow for purchasing under pre-defined arrangements – were supposed to end on April 28 next year, but have now been extended by six months, according to recently published procurement notices.
The G-Cloud 14 framework kicked off in October last year and was supposed to last for 18 months until April 28, 2026. The award for lots 1 to 3 was worth up to £6.5 billion, while lot 4 was set to be worth up to £1 billion. They cover a broad range of cloud software as well as migration services.
In April 2025, the Crown Commercial Service kicked off procurement of the replacement cloud framework, G-Cloud 15. According to a pre-procurement notice, that deal was expected to last from March 18, 2026, to September 17, 2027, and be worth up to £4.8 billion.
However, two notices published late last week suggest that timetable has slipped. They extend G-Cloud 14 from April 28, 2026, until October 28, 2026, at a cost of up to £650 million for lots 1 to 3 and up to £1 billion for lot 4.
The notices only say: “The extension will facilitate the procurement of G-Cloud 15,” with more information to be made available later.
Procurement of cloud services has become a hot topic in central government as critics argue the two leading cloud providers – AWS and Microsoft Azure – continue to dominate, limiting value for money and stifling innovation.
In February, Andrew Forzani, chief commercial officer in the Cabinet Office, told a Parliamentary spending watchdog that if the government wanted to use its spending power to strike better deals with the top cloud providers, individual departments needed to align their requirements.
He was responding to criticism that the Home Office awarded AWS a £450 million contract for cloud services over three years. The deal replaced an earlier £120 million deal awarded in December 2020.
In April last year, The Register found the government had admitted its negotiations with leading cloud providers was hamstrung by vendor lock-in.
A document from the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital & Data Office – which has since been rolled into the Government Digital Service in the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology – said the “UK government’s current approach to cloud adoption and management across its departments faces several challenges,” which together “risk concentration and vendor lock-in that inhibit UK government’s negotiating power over the cloud vendors.” ®