A third of UK businesses have reported revenue losses of up to £4 million annually due to network outages and poor performance, a new IDC InfoBrief commissioned by Expreo found.

With another 18% facing losses exceeding £4 million, these findings highlight the growing impact of network instability on business operations.

Following a wave of high-profile IT disruptions over the past year—including cybersecurity breaches and connectivity failures—50% of UK businesses have urgently re-evaluated their technology infrastructure.

As a result, networking and connectivity have risen sharply on the C-suite agenda, with 40% of businesses now prioritizing investment in these areas over the next 12 months, surpassing even AI, which falls to third place (35%).

The urgency around networks is underscored by the fact that 27% of organisations say inadequate network performance threatens their growth plans, while 49% report network limitations are holding back their ability to support large-scale data and AI initiatives. Yet only 5% feel their networks are fully prepared to support AI without barriers.

Networks are increasingly seen as the bottleneck limiting AI adoption, with scalability, flexibility, and performance cited as critical challenges.

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Cybersecurity remains a major concern alongside networking. The report finds that 44% of organisations struggle to recruit or retain cybersecurity professionals, closely followed by a 40% shortage in networking skills. To address this, 40% of UK businesses plan to increase their reliance on external partners such as managed service providers.

Andy Ward SVP International Absolute Security commented: “It’s clear UK businesses are feeling the cost of fragile networks, and while it’s positive to see more investment in cybersecurity, tools alone aren’t enough. Organisations need a cyber resilience strategy built on real-time visibility, proactive threat detection, and self-healing capabilities to maintain continuity in the face of disruption.”

“With rising AI and data demands, security and network performance go hand in hand, and the growing cyber skills gap only makes resilience harder. Investing in both people and technology is key to staying secure and operational. An organisation is only as strong as its weakest link, whether that’s an undertrained employee or an unsecured endpoint.”