- Zoho +43% UK growth
- Zoho to move UK base to new offices in Milton Keynes in Q1 2026, including a new data centre to provide for UK data sovereignty
- Zoho adding more products to comply with local regulations, such as Zoho books which is recognised by HMRC for VAT
- Zoho survey reveals most organisations act ‘reactively’ rather than ‘proactively’ to AI privacy challenges
Zoho UK recently reported a 43% growth, whilst having tripled its UK staff numbers in the past two years. The company will move from its Bletchley-based UK office to Milton Keynes in the first quarter of 2026 to create space for further investment in the team. It will also open a UK data centre during the same quarter to enable customers to retain their data within UK boundaries only and to help continue delivery of AI-powered solutions to UK customers.
Zoho’s strategy in the UK focuses around its Transnational Localism programme, designed to provide local teams with in-country expertise to local customers to support their digital transformation and business growth, as well as to help create self-reliant local communities and economies.
Zoho’s UK Managing Director, Sachin Agrawal comments:
“In a constantly moving landscape impacted by geopolitical tensions and economic instability we are focusing deeply on enhancing the customer experience we provide to our UK customer base. We understand the shift to customers wanting to host their data within the boundaries of the UK, which is particularly important in industries such as the public sector and financial services. Data privacy and protection continue to be at the core of our operations and is enhanced further with our new data centre.”
Agrawal continues, “Investment in our new office space enables us to continue to strengthen our growing team, ensuring that we not only deliver the best software solutions, but the best service and support from those with an excellent local knowledge of the market to our UK customers. The UK is our largest and longest served market in Europe, and our third largest globally with huge growth potential. We are committed to investing further to continue to deliver what our customers want and need.”
At Zoholics Birmingham, Zoho announced it is adding to its solutions which help customers comply with local regulations. Zoho Books is now an HMRC-recognised software provider for MTD for ITSA, helping sole traders comply with local regulations. Zoho Books is already recognised by HMRC for VAT, and this latest recognition extends its compliance capabilities to cover the next phase of the UK’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) initiative. This phase of regulation requires income tax to be digitally recorded and filed for sole traders. From April 2026 this applies to those with qualifying income over £50,000 and from April 2027 for those with qualifying income over £30,000.
Zoho has invested further into its UK partner network across the past year, seeing over a 100% growth in the number of premium partners in its ecosystem. Partners consist of resellers, implementation support, distributors and system integrators.
Zoho Survey Findings from Research commissioned via Arion Research LLC
Zoho research was presented at the recent Zoholic conference held in September in the ICC in Birmingham. The findings are based on a nationwide survey from Zoho commissioned via Arion Research LLC, which gathered responses from 363 UK business leaders across small, mid-market, and large enterprises. The survey focused on organisations’ AI adoption, privacy practices, workforce readiness, and governance approaches, providing a representative snapshot of current attitudes and practices toward AI privacy in the UK.
The survey highlights that most of these organisations are being reactive rather than proactive, when it comes to AI and privacy, often strengthening privacy measures only after encountering issues. This leaves them exposed to potential data breaches and operational risks if AI systems are not safeguarded from the outset.
While nearly two-thirds (63%) of UK organisations report strengthening privacy measures after adopting artificial intelligence (AI), only around a third (34%) classify their improvements as significant, according to a new survey from global technology leader, Zoho.
Overall, 37% of respondents cite privacy and security concerns as a barrier to AI adoption. Customer data breaches remain the leading privacy concern for UK organisations, with 44% of respondents ranking them as their top worry. This intense focus has fuelled significant investment in privacy infrastructure, with 85% of organisations now reporting dedicated privacy officers or teams.
However, according to Zoho, this ‘fortress’ mentality risks overlooking other critical challenges, such as algorithmic transparency, bias in AI, and the retention of training data – issues that are just as vital to building meaningful protection and long-term trust.
Another finding from the survey showed that workforce readiness remains a significant challenge. Only around 20% respondents have formally trained just 0-10% of their workforce, and only 8% have formally trained 90-100% of their workforce. This leaves many organisations reliant on informal “learn-as-you-go” practices.
Respondents cited data analysis (56%), prompt engineering (44%), and AI literacy (37%) as their top upskilling priorities, demonstrating the urgent need to build in-house expertise to make privacy measures meaningful and enforceable when it comes to AI. Overall, 32% of respondents cite lack of technical expertise as a barrier to AI adoption.
Transparency, fairness, and governance gaps remain a challenge across UK businesses. Only 48 per cent of organisations have documented AI use policies, and just 45 per cent have documented explainability requirements for AI decisions. These gaps make it harder for companies to maintain trust and ensure clear accountability, highlighting the need for stronger AI governance.
Sachin Agrawal, Managing Director, Zoho UK commented, “It is still early in terms of business AI adoption but it is expected to become more pervasive. However, organisations need to make step changes in order to mitigate risk and use AI effectively to increase positive impact. This research shows that while many UK organisations are strengthening privacy measures, too often these steps are taken reactively rather than through forward-looking planning.”
Agrawal continues, “It’s encouraging that most businesses have dedicated privacy officers in place, but without the right training, governance, and clear AI use policies, these efforts may not translate into meaningful protection. To unlock AI’s full potential, organisations must go beyond compliance, embedding transparency, investing in workforce skills, and building well-defined data strategies that both safeguard information and maintain customer trust.”
State of UK AI adoption
The survey shows UK organisations are demonstrating sophisticated adoption of AI across three key categories: traditional AI, generative AI, and agentic AI.
Generative AI has achieved the highest implementation rates, driven by practical business applications such as customer support (67%), content creation (66%), and code generation or development assistance (62%).
Traditional AI remains well-established, with mature implementations in predictive analytics (64%), customer segmentation (63%), and recommendation systems (60%). Meanwhile, autonomous AI, though newer, is rapidly gaining traction, with adoption in personalised customer journeys (58%), autonomous decision-making and intelligent RPA (61%), and strategic planning assistance (63%).
UK organisations are adopting AI through a strategic, staged approach, ranging from personal use of public language models to advanced, organisation-wide integration. Respondents favour a hybrid sourcing strategy, combining commercially available solutions with bespoke applications developed internally or with external partners, allowing them to select the best-fit solution for their needs.
