A substantial majority of UK in-house IT projects fail to reach completion
In the UK, many businesses have put serious time and money into developing in-house IT solutions. The goal is usually control, more flexibility, data security, and possibly even long-term cost advantage. But the data tells a different story. Most of these internal builds don’t make it to the finish line.
A recent survey of over 2,000 IT and security leaders shows that 71% of in-house IT projects are ultimately abandoned. That number jumps to 83% in tightly regulated sectors like finance and manufacturing. That’s a failure rate that can’t be ignored, especially for sectors where compliance and uptime are mission-critical.
C-suite leaders need to step back and ask: if our internal projects are failing this often, are we focusing on the right goals? Internal builds can sound like a smart investment on paper. But in practice, the high rate of abandonment suggests leadership teams should reevaluate strategic priorities. Projects dragging on or quietly cancelled aren’t just bad optics, they’re resource intensive and slow us down. Rethink what’s mission-critical to build versus what’s better sourced from vendors who specialize in delivering scalable, secure systems.
Organizations that struggle to deliver internal systems are burning time, capital, and opportunity. The world moves fast. And if your infrastructure isn’t keeping up, neither will your company.
In-house IT builds in the UK are rarely delivered on time or within allocated budgets
If your internal teams are building IT tools, expect missed deadlines and budget creep. That’s the norm in the UK today. Only 11% of in-house projects are completed on time. Even fewer, just 16%, hit their budget targets. That’s a brutal hit to ROI for any enterprise-level initiative.
When you miss timelines and overspend, you’re not just losing money. You’re also losing the flexibility to pivot, innovate, or scale. Your engineering teams are spread thin, locked into extended development cycles on tools that often weren’t essential to begin with. This quickly compounds into a larger issue: your internal momentum slows down, and teams fall behind on broader strategic priorities.
These failures are usually the result of two things, over-optimism about the complexity of the job, and a tendency to build when buying is the smarter move. What gets overlooked is the cost of delay. In tech, speed matters. Ship late, and your competitors pull ahead. Overrun your budget, and you’re cutting into growth capital. C-suites can’t afford that kind of drag.
Leadership should build internal systems only when there’s long-term strategic value no vendor can provide. Everything else should be assessed through the lens of predictability, performance, and time to value. The numbers don’t lie, internal IT projects in the UK aren’t delivering those guarantees right now.
Compliance-driven internal builds yield limited success despite their focus on meeting regulatory mandates
Many UK firms build IT tools in-house to meet compliance and data-residency demands. Around one in three internal IT projects are driven by these regulatory requirements. It’s a logical move on the surface, control your infrastructure, and you feel more in control of compliance. But what the numbers show is this: even when regulation is the priority, execution continues to fall short.
Compliance-focused projects still suffer from the same issues that affect other internal builds, missed timelines, cost overruns, and growing maintenance burdens. So the outcome is that companies are spending significantly more capital and engineering hours just to check regulatory boxes, and they’re still far from confident in the results.
Compliance doesn’t equal capability. Just because you build something internally doesn’t mean it’s better or more secure. Many of these systems turn into legacy risks almost as soon as they’re deployed, unable to scale or adapt as regulation evolves. And if you’re burning resources maintaining tools that never stabilize, you’re falling behind.
Senior leaders need to weigh the long-term possibility of compliance-focused vendor solutions. Specialist providers are building infrastructure pre-aligned with regulatory specs, less burden, faster install, and lower overhead. In a landscape where compliance standards change frequently, flexibility and resilience matter more than raw control.
The ongoing maintenance of self-built IT tools is a drain on resources and financial budgets
A system you build isn’t done once you launch it. Maintenance is where a lot of the real effort, and expense, sits. Most companies underestimate this. That’s the mistake.
Data shows that 63% of IT teams spend between 10 and 50 hours each month maintaining internally built tools. That’s a pretty big chunk of time for teams that could be focused on new capabilities or customer-facing innovation. On top of that, up to two-thirds of companies are spending an extra $20,000 to $100,000 per year just to keep these systems running. That money often wasn’t factored into the original budget.
Internal maintenance demands also come with added exposure. You’re not just fixing bugs or upgrading features, you’re patching security holes and adapting to regulatory shifts. If teams can’t respond quickly, systems break. According to the same report, 64% of organizations experienced downtime due to security issues. That’s downtime they couldn’t afford.
When you decide to go in-house, remember: it’s not just about launch. You’re signing up to support that system every month, possibly for years. You’ve got to account for the personnel hours and financial costs this creates. If you’re spending more time keeping the lights on than moving forward, it’s time to reassess your IT build strategy. For most companies, speed, resilience, and operational uptime are worth more than full ownership of infrastructure.
Security considerations influence the choice between developing in-house IT and third-party vendors
Security tops the list when leaders choose between building in-house or buying from external providers. But the perception of what’s secure depends on where you’re standing. In the UK, about 51% of IT leaders say third-party solutions offer better protection. In the US, 59% believe their internal systems are more secure. This contrast reflects regional differences in market maturity, regulatory confidence, and historical preferences.
The truth is, confidence doesn’t equal performance. Both regions report issues. Security-related downtime is still a common problem, which tells us that neither approach, build or buy, is immune to failure. The deciding factor is not ownership, but capability. Who can patch quickly, monitor threats continuously, and scale protection as threats grow?
In-house systems may offer visibility and control. But they also demand in-house monitoring, patching, and incident response. Many internal teams just don’t have the bandwidth to manage that at scale. Vendors, especially those focused entirely on security infrastructure, often invest more in defense tech, threat intelligence, and real-time response updates than single enterprises can.
The takeaway: don’t default to building based on assumptions. Focus on outcomes. Choose the path that delivers continuous protection without slowing down your business.
The purported efficiency gains of in-house development are often not realized
Most internal IT builds are sold to leadership teams as more efficient and tailored compared to third-party solutions. But the data contradicts that. Only 8% of internally developed projects are completed on time. Just 11% stay within their original budget. That should be a wake-up call for teams still pushing the efficiency narrative.
More than half of these builds take one and a half to two times longer than expected. Nearly half cost almost double what was planned. That doesn’t reflect a strategy that’s optimized. It suggests a mismatch between scope, internal capability, resourcing, and execution management.
Companies that consistently miss timelines and overspend lose their ability to allocate capital strategically. Engineering teams get locked into long feedback loops and workarounds. It becomes harder to move fast or respond to changing needs. That’s more than inefficiency, it’s risk to business agility.
Executives need a clearer threshold. Internal builds should be reserved only for projects where differentiation creates long-term advantage and no viable external option exists. In all other use cases, teams should push toward solutions that provide predictability, quality, and fast implementation. You don’t get competitive advantage from late projects that double your cost basis.
There is a growing shift towards hiring specialist vendors
Across markets, the trend is clear, companies are moving away from complex in-house IT builds and turning to specialist vendors. Three reasons drive this shift: faster time to implementation, deeper access to subject matter expertise, and improved system reliability. These are practical decisions made by leaders under pressure to deliver results quickly and securely.
In the data, 30% of organizations cite speed as their top reason for preferring external solutions. Another 29% point to the benefit of accessing specialized expertise their teams can’t match internally. And 28% choose vendors because their platforms offer more reliable performance. These are not superficial gains, they’re core to maintaining momentum and supporting growth at scale.
UK companies, in particular, are moving toward vendors as regulatory burdens increase. The logic is simple: external tools purpose-built for compliance reduce internal friction. US teams, while initially more focused on speed, are also beginning to value vendors for long-term scalability and lower maintenance overhead.
This shift doesn’t mean internal development is obsolete. But it does mean it’s no longer the default. Leaders are recognizing that proprietary systems aren’t always an advantage, especially when teams spend too much time managing tools instead of building the next product, expanding global reach, or evolving the business.
The decision to buy instead of build is about staying focused. If a vendor can deliver the functionality, security, and compliance required, faster and with fewer internal distractions, it’s a smart move. High-performance companies don’t spend resources where others already offer better, faster solutions. They concentrate effort where it makes the biggest impact.
Recap
If your goal is speed, efficiency, and long-term resilience, internal IT builds aren’t delivering. The majority are over budget, behind schedule, or never finished. That level of inconsistency is a problem, especially when regulatory demands, cybersecurity threats, and competitive pressure continue to rise.
The core issue isn’t effort. UK teams are investing heavily. It’s return. Execs need to step back and assess where their teams add the most value, and where trusted partners already have the edge. Building in-house can make sense when the advantage is distinct and the capabilities are there. But when the tools already exist externally, wasting months or even years duplicating them drains both capital and momentum.
Smart leadership means resource discipline. Focus internal bandwidth on what moves the business forward. Leverage specialist vendors who do one thing well, so your teams can do the same. The companies that scale fastest aren’t the ones building everything. They’re the ones building what matters.
