Research commissioned by Microsoft, based on analysis from the International Data Corporation (IDC), outlines how public cloud adoption is set to transform the business landscape in Australia and New Zealand, generating up to A$150 billion in revenue for Australian and NZ businesses over the next four years.

Adoption of public cloud services has increased steadily since the pandemic as organisations begin to invest more heavily in IT capabilities and cost optimisation. But it is set to accelerate rapidly over the next four years as organisations embrace public cloud as the go-to platform for digital transformation. According to the research:

• Public cloud spending in Australia is set to increase by 83 per cent between 2022 and 2026, generating A$123.7 billion in revenue (equivalent to 5 per cent of Australia’s GDP)
• In NZ, public cloud spending is estimated to nearly double in the same period, generating NZ$23.9 billion in revenue (equivalent to 5 per cent of NZ’s GDP) public cloud adoption and adjacent areas (security, data mining or analytics) will create 596,750 jobs in Australia and 134,000 in NZ
• Approximately 20 per cent of these jobs will require specific technical and IT-related digital skills

The research finds that organisations with existing cloud migration strategies will continue to adopt public cloud services pre-emptively to drive business efficiency, while those without strategies in place will be forced to adapt to cloud reactively.