Government organisations plan to make the largest increases in investment in Big Data and the Internet of Things despite expecting the lowest economic benefit of any sector, according to research.

A survey carried out by economics research company Centre for Economics & Business Research found that 84% of all businesses and government organisations have experienced an increase in revenue due to investment in big data, with 85% reporting a boost in revenue from investment in the IoT.

However, revenues in central and local government have only increased by 4% and 3% respectively due to the technologies, the research found.

Cebr chief executive Graham Brough said: “Our research finds that the majority of firms have implemented between one and three big data analytics solutions.

“However, the key is making sure those solutions are extracting maximum insight which is then turned into business actions. IoT is earlier in its lifecycle, and will provide more data for analysis in areas that may be new to analytics, reinforcing the potential benefits to the UK economy.”

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The report said that Big Data analytics solutions could offer insight into Big Data, enabling more informed decision making by government plus better and more targeted policy.

However, government bodies on average have only implemented 1.69 Big Data solutions each, the second lowest number after transport and logistics.

And only 14% have implement ted Internet of Things technology – the second lowest of any sector along with health. The average is 30% with telecoms the biggest adopters, with 67% of firms using the technology.

More encouragingly, government bodies have made the largest average increase in Big Data, the Internet of Things and analytics solutions – 17% up during the past year, compared by the retail and insurance industries, which only boosted spending by 6%-8%

Over the next five years, government is intending to make the greatest increases in investment by 21%.

The study said: “One motivation for this increased investment in big data and the IoT could be a link with the Government’s ‘digital by default’ initiative, which aims to offer public services digitally, making their access simpler, clearer and faster.”