The social housing sector and public sector in general has been labelled as a digital laggard. But the shift in social housing cloud adoption is definitely happening.

Some housing providers are pushing ahead with SaaS adoption now, while others face resource constraints, legacy dependencies or internal processes that slow down decision making.

 Cloud Is the Future. But Pace Must Be Personal.

There is a requirement for choice in the social housing sector. Some providers are ready for SaaS now. Others aren’t - and that’s okay.

The choices typically are:

1. Stay on-premise, if internal constraints require it

2. Move to a hosted model, gaining performance and stability improvement

3. Transition fully to SaaS, unlocking automation, continuous updates, and lower total cost of ownership

Whether providers manage 500 homes or 50,000, they can choose the path that fits their skills, budgets, and organisational readiness - and change direction when they are ready.

 Supporting Providers at Every Stage

 So where does Aareon fit into this?

This principle of choice is now central to Aareon’s strategy - providing the services appropriate to where customers are in their digital transformation journey:

1. For on-premise customers
   Aareon continues to maintain and support established systems like QL and Active H - because some organisations simply aren’t ready to move yet. Internal approvals, procurement frameworks, integrations and security policies often require time, stakeholder alignment and investment cycles.
   

2. For organisations moving to hosted
   Aareon is actively migrating many customers from legacy environments into a hosted infrastructure (QL Hosted, ActiveH) that preserves the power of their existing system while improving:
   - Performance
   - Reliability
   - Security
   - Upgrade cadence

   It’s a stepping stone that brings meaningful gains without requiring a wholesale rebuild of processes.
   

3. For providers ready for true cloud and SaaS
   Aareon’s portfolio offers market-leading platforms like Active H Web, and HomeMaster – which offer cloud native speed, unified updates and modern digital experiences. And with 100 providers choosing HomeMaster alone in the last few years, making it the fastest-growing housing management system in the UK, SaaS is no longer experimental, it’s mainstream.

The Bigger Picture: A Sector Moving Toward Modernisation

With the acquisitions of HomeMaster, ActiveH and Housing Online in 2025, Aareon now offers a complete spectrum of deployment options - and the experience to migrate customers from any stage.

• HomeMaster brings proven cloud-native simplicity.

• ActiveH Web brings modernisation to a deeply functional heritage product.

• Hosted models bring stability to longstanding estates.

Across all of it sits one philosophy:

Cloud will be essential long-term. But we’ll support you every step of the way - whatever pace you choose.

*Governments Cloud First Policy blog, gov.uk, February 2025