Free report·
Cloud Repatriation_ Not the Story We've Been Told
Among organisations that changed their cloud infrastructure in the last 12 months, 31% moved services from on-premises to public cloud, compared with 28% moving from public cloud to private cloud and 24% moving to on-premises infrastructure.
This 31st edition of SlashData's State of the Developer Nation examines whether the widely reported 'cloud repatriation' trend matches what developers actually do. Drawing on more than 3,000 cloud developers, it tests the claim that European organisations are moving workloads off American hyperscalers in response to sovereignty concerns such as the US Cloud Act. The evidence shows movement in every direction at once, with no single trend dominating. Regional differences between Western Europe and North America are far smaller than media coverage implies. Sovereignty concern is real but concentrated: it scales with organisational size and is strongest in regulated, data-sensitive industries. For most developers, cloud decisions are driven by security, cost, disaster recovery and performance rather than geopolitics. The report segments changes by region and by organisational size, and identifies which industry verticals cite sovereignty as a motivation. It concludes that sovereignty is a genuine but overstated demand signal under the 2026 regulatory climate, and that the competitive battleground remains operational.
/Key findings
- Of organisations that changed cloud infrastructure in the past year, 31% moved on-premises to public cloud, 28% moved public cloud to private cloud and 24% moved public cloud to on-premises (n=2,037).
- Western Europe and North America report broadly similar movements: public-to-private (28% vs 31%), public-to-on-premises (23% vs 23%) and on-premises-to-public cloud (27% vs 33%).
- Data sovereignty and regulatory compliance as a motivation shows a size gradient: cited by 10% of small business developers, 18% at medium-sized organisations and 21% at large enterprises.
- Across financial services, software, data and analytics, telecoms and AI, security is the dominant reason for moving off public cloud, cited by between 40% and 43% of developers.
- Sovereignty motivation is most concentrated in business consulting and legal services (24%) and data analytics and business intelligence (19%); government and defence are among the least likely, at 13%.
/Questions this report answers
Are developers really repatriating workloads from public cloud back on-premises?
Repatriation is happening, but so is migration in every other direction. 31% of organisations moved on-premises to public cloud, while 28% moved to private cloud and 24% to on-premises infrastructure, with no single direction dominating.
Is there a large gap between European and North American cloud strategies?
No. Western European and North American developers report broadly similar rates of change, such as public-to-on-premises migration at 23% for both regions, making the transatlantic divide less severe than media coverage suggests.
What actually drives cloud infrastructure decisions?
Security, cost, disaster recovery and performance dominate across all organisation sizes, rather than geopolitical anxiety. Security is the leading reason for moving off public cloud in most verticals, cited by 40% to 43% of developers.
Which organisations are most concerned about data sovereignty?
Larger organisations and those handling sensitive or highly regulated data. Sovereignty was cited by 10% of small business developers, rising to 18% at medium-sized organisations and 21% at large enterprises.
How do government and defence organisations approach cloud decisions?
Cost optimisation, cost predictability and corporate policy lead, with 23% citing corporate or IT policy as their off-cloud motivation. Only 13% of government and defence developers cite data sovereignty, reflecting a top-down dynamic.
Which region moved fastest from on-premises to public cloud?
Eastern European developers showed the highest rate at 35%, slightly ahead of North America (33%) and Western Europe (27%), likely reflecting the migration of legacy on-premises backend systems.
/Who it's for
- Cloud vendors and hyperscalers assessing whether sovereignty is reshaping demand
- Infrastructure and platform strategists benchmarking migration trends across regions and organisation sizes
- Product marketers positioning cloud services around the drivers developers actually cite