The Home Office could pay Amazon Web Services (AWS) more than £1 billion for cloud services under a contract due to start on 1 December 2027, according to a pipeline document published on 30 October. The deal would run to 1 December 2029, and a possible two year extension would take it to 2031.
The document puts the value at £1,057,945,209, VAT included. Over the four years that an extension would allow, that comes to more than £260 million a year.
That is well above the department’s last deal. In 2023, the Home Office signed a public cloud hosting agreement with AWS worth around £450 million, and it expires on 30 November 2026. The comparison is not like for like, though, because the earlier deal ran three years and the new figure appears to cover four. The dates also leave a gap. The new contract starts a year after the old one ends, and the published details do not say what covers the time in between.
The scope has grown as well. The 2023 deal covered only public cloud hosting, while the proposed contract adds cloud backups. The notice says the renewal will support the department’s current and future cloud hosting needs. The Home Office did not answer ITPro’s request for comment before publication, and AWS referred the outlet to the department.
Bidskim figures put UK public sector cloud spending above £1.64 billion across 249 contracts and 137 public bodies. AWS accounts for £1.22 billion of that, against £355 million for Microsoft Azure, while Google Cloud and Oracle together hold 4%. The Home Office and HMRC contracts, both three year deals from 2023, add up to £800 million.
Scrutiny is not new. In late 2024, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones questioned the rising costs of the Home Office’s AWS deal. He claimed the department was at the supplier’s mercy and warned that two or three companies hold a large share of cloud contracts.
Next steps are already scheduled. The Home Office is seeking market engagement until 8 December, and TechUK is leading a virtual event for suppliers registered on G-Cloud 15. The formal tender notice is due on 4 January 2027.
Until the tender notice appears, the £1 billion figure comes from a pipeline document alone.
