In 2024, UK SMEs could be more vulnerable to cyber-attacks than SMEs in other countries, new research from JumpCloud has indicated.

Their Q1 2024 SME IT Trends report found that UK respondents are less likely to offer formal cybersecurity training (62% UK, 72.5% USA, and 74% in India), less likely to have an IT security expert on staff (78% v 87% v 94%), least financially prepared to recover from a cyber-attack (65% v 75% v 80%), and least likely to have a cybersecurity plan (72% v 82% v 87.5%).

This lack of investment in planning, training, and resources could be budget-related. The UK reported the lowest overall budget increase (75%) and lowest percentage reporting “budgets up by more than 20%”, at 13%.

UK budgets are more likely to be remaining flat than other countries and combining “remaining flat” and “decreased” the picture is slightly less favourable overall. In the Q2 2023 report, 77% of UK respondents reported budget increases.

Security is the Number One Challenge 

In terms of challenges, security dominates, cited by more than half of respondents globally (56%) and by 50% of UK respondents. The second and third biggest challenges both globally and in the UK were new services/application rollouts (45% and 41% respectively) and increased work burden (44% and 38% respectively).

In Q2 2023, UK respondents cited device management as their second largest challenges, but this has now dropped to sixth place. Network attacks topped the list (40%), followed by software vulnerability exploits (34%), and ransomware (29%).

In the UK, network attacks also topped the list (44.5%) followed by ransomware (35%), with software vulnerability exploits in third place (32%).

In fact, ransomware is a bigger concern for UK organisations than the other countries surveyed (35% UK vs 32% USA vs 20% India).

Budgets on the Rise 

The good news is that globally, IT budgets are up over the past 12 months, continuing the trend seen in early 2023. Over eight in ten organisations report an increase in IT budgets (82%), and a fifth (20%) report an increase of more than 20%.

Likewise, 2024 is an improving picture for UK SMEs with 69% of UK respondents expecting their IT budgets to increase and only 7% predicting a decrease. In Q2 2023, 57% expected increases and 10% expected budgets to decrease.

Greg Keller, CTO of JumpCloud commented; “SMEs are often called the “engine” of the UK economy and they have contributed to better-than-expected performance over the past year. Defending against cyber attacks is important so UK SMEs can continue driving growth, and organisations are naturally looking for powerful but cost-effective solutions that minimise administrative burden. Frictionless device and identity management is a great place to start.”

AI Adoption

With all the hype around AI, it is no surprise that organisations are actively planning for AI; only 13% of global organisations do not currently have any plans to implement AI initiatives.

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Well over half (61%) expect to implement AI initiatives within the next year, with 76% agreeing their organisation should be investing in AI, and 63% already having their own AI policy.

However, adoption of AI appears to be higher among Indian and USA respondents than in the UK. In fact, 23% of UK respondents have no plans to implement AI and 8.5% are taking a longer-term view and not planning to implement until 19-24 months out.

Only 70% of UK respondents think their organisation should be investing in AI, versus the global average of 76% and only 45.5% have a policy around AI versus 63% globally.

UK respondents were more likely to disagree or strongly disagree that AI is outpacing their organisation’s ability to protect against threats (22% versus 18% in the USA versus 5% in India).

Also, the UK was least likely to claim that AI will be a net positive (71% versus 76% USA and 91% India). That said, 22% of UK respondents do feel that the organisation is moving too slowly when it comes to the adoption of AI, a higher percentage than the USA and India respondents.