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- Lee Burke, CRO

Why SaaS is inevitable - But the journey should be yours

If your organisation isn't using a cloud or SaaS-based housing management system, should it be? 

In this article we'll look at:

  • The different models; what 'on-premise', 'cloud' and 'SaaS' mean

  • What are the benefits of each and what your organisation needs to consider

  • Why Aareon believes choice is important 

 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.

 Why SaaS Still Matters - Even If You’re Not Ready Yet

Across the UK, cloud adoption is accelerating in almost every sector, and around 60% of government and public‑sector IT systems now run on cloud services*.

Meanwhile, cloud native industries (finance, business services, tech) are pushing ahead with SaaS dominant models - creating expectations for:

    • Faster updates

    • Greater resilience

    • “Always on” accessibility

    • Lower infrastructure costs

    • Greater ability to integrate future innovations – like AI

For housing providers facing regulatory scrutiny, tight budgets and rising tenant expectations, SaaS offers a pathway to agility without spiralling IT overheads. But, and this is the key message - the future being inevitable doesn’t mean the present should be pressured.

 

 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.

Internal Capabilities Matter as Much as Technology

There are honest barriers many organisations face:

    • Smaller providers may lack the capacity or specialist skills to lead a migration
    • Larger organisations often have budget constraints, competing priorities or complex internal governance
    • Hybrid estates and legacy integrations can slow decisions, even when the desire to move is strong

Our role as Aareon is not only the software, but the service. To remove friction, support the transition and ensure that when customers do choose cloud or SaaS, they do so with confidence, capability and clarity.

 

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

 

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