UK firms spend £1.8bn a year on security

Spending on security has reached ‘massive’ levels, according to a report from Point Topic.

Barely 1% of companies – 37,000 businesses – with data access don’t have any specific security measures in place, finds the research.

Smaller companies spend £15 to £134 a month on security, while larger companies fork out between £960 and £2,500. That adds up to £1.8bn annual spend on security by UK firms.

Firms of all sizes are using firewalls and anti-virus systems, but measures such as disaster recovery, documented procedures and compliance monitoring are more likely to be found in large companies.

Strangely, the results show that even though small sites spend an average £11.30 per employee each month and large sites £15.80, medium-sized companies of 11–50 staff spend only £4.50 per month.

“An explanation could be that they get economies of scale with the cost of security packages without having the need for consulting expertise and bespoke solutions required for the bigger sites,” says Tim Johnson, chief executive of Point Topic.