IT contractors may be required to help more firms switch to cloud computing data storage as demand continues to grow.

According to IT services company Quantix, the decision to include cloud computing in its portfolio has been a major factor behind the strong growth the company has seen this year.

The firm has seen year-on-year growth of four per cent, resulting in a year-to-date profit of £1.4 million.

According to the firm's managing director Richard Salmon, services such as managed application hosting, database-as-a-service and cloud-based disaster recovery are proving very popular with businesses.

"Our view is that customers need not only a secure, robust hosting platform for their complex applications, but also an organisation that knows how to relentlessly support and manage those same applications," he said.

The managing director of the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) Europe, Doug Miles, recently claimed that services such as cloud computing will soon be mandated, with smaller firms having to use them whether they want to or not.