IT and telecommunications adoption

The IT&TAI is forecast to increase at a compound annual rate of 2.3% over the five-year period through 2022, to reach 139.2 points - the absolute growth of the IT&TAI between 2017 and 2022 inclusive is estimated to be 14.7 points. In 2022 alone, the IT&TAI is estimated to increase by 1.4%, or 1.9 points in absolute terms. The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic accelerated trends in IT and telecommunications adoption in 2020 and 2021, as businesses increased their remote working capabilities to continue operations during the pandemic. The use of video-conferencing and collaboration software has substantially increased, as businesses navigate their way through the remote working environment. Demand for cloud storage and cloud-based software has also risen, as businesses move to increase their off-site capabilities.

Households, individuals and businesses all have a somewhat insatiable appetite for the most up-to-date technologies. As a result, society's adoption of IT&T has continued on an upwards trajectory since the early 2010s, particularly the more traditional technologies which have become ubiquitous and considered essential. For instance, the ONS reported that some 96% of UK households had some form of internet access in 2020, compared to a relatively inferior 86% and 73% in 2015 and 2020 respectively, while 79% of adults aged 16 and over in Great Britain had internet access 'on-the-go' (i.e. internet-connected mobile phone) in 2019, compared to 58% in 2014. However, the market for what are coined "traditional technologies" (i.e. fixed-line broadband, standard mobile connectivity) is saturating, with the majority of households, individuals and business in the United Kingdom already having some form of internet access and or telecommunication connectivity - this effectively means that the adoption rate of both internet access, whether in the household or business market, and mobile communications uptake has slowed. Nonetheless, and considering technologies become obsolete quickly amid the rapid rate of technological development activity, society's adoption of IT&T has evolved. To put this into both perspective and context, the majority of the UK market now has internet access. However, instead of accessing the internet via a fixed-line copper wire network, the advent of fibre-optic connectivity, which offers quality and speed advantages over traditional internet networks, has led to more households subscribing to fibre-optic internet access and forgoing traditional network access. Effectively, this means that the proportion of household currently adopting internet access remains relatively unchanged, but the way in which internet is accessed or consumed has evolved.