Analysis from Kable has revealed that the UK is one of the EU nations that spends the most on IT security and services.

British firms allocate 20.6% of their IT services budgets to security and privacy services, compared to EU’s average – also including the UK – of 19.4%. Only German organisations invest more at 21.1%.

The UK is also ahead of countries like Spain and France, which only invest 19.3% and 18.6% of their budgets in this vertical respectively.

The research firm has also found that the most used security services in use in Britain today are intrusion detection and prevention, with 65.7% of respondents saying that they use this sort of service. The EU average for this category stands at 70.6%.

Over the next two years, 59% of British companies said they are considering investing in this area, compared to 61.3% in the EU as a whole.

The UK’s second most used security service is governance, risk and compliance (61.8%) which differs from the wider picture in the EU where it is the fifth most used security services with 61.2% of companies currently using them.

Over the next 24 months, both UK and EU firms are planning less investment in this field, with only 56.7% and 55.3% respectively admitting they are considering investing in this area.

Identity management, which is today the third most used security service by 61.2% of British firms, is also set to drop in interest over the next two years with only 52.8% of organisations looking to invest.

In the EU, identity management is today the second most used service at 67.9%, set to drop to 56.7% in two years.

Mobile security follows, being used by 60.1% of Britain’s organisations, compared to 63.7% in the EU.

In the UK, security information and event management (56.7%), managed authentication (56.7%), business continuity (56.7%), DDOS mitigation (54.5%) and clean pipes (51.7%) are the remaining most used security services today.

Across the EU, security information and event management is used by 62.1% of those surveyed. Managed authentication is used by 59%, business continuity by 59%, DDOS mitigation by 53.5% and clean pipes by 50.2%.

Over the next two years, both the UK alone and EU firms are planning to shift their priorities within these security services.

Security information and event management will drop to 56.7% in the UK, but it will become the third most used service alongside governance, risk and compliance. In the EU, this vertical will share the same percentage (56.7%).

As for the remaining verticals, companies are planning to shift they priorities as it follows: managed authentication (UK: 52.8%/EU: 54%), business continuity (UK: 58.4%/EU: 55.3%), DDOS mitigation (UK: 49.4%/EU: 53.2%), and clean pipes (UK: 47.2%/EU: 50.2%),

All figures come from Kable’s ICT Customer Insight survey, which polled 1343 respondents. The survey findings include data on current allocation of IT services budgets and security services currently in use and those that are prioritised for investment in the next 2 years. Subscribe to Kable here.