Companies in the UK are worse at data archiving and retrieval than their US counterparts, according to research.

In the UK 28 per cent of companies do not archive their data at all compared to 23 per cent in the US.

And a further 15 per cent in the UK and 20 per cent in the US do not know how long it would take to retrieve a three-month-old file. Six per cent of US respondents said they would not be able to at all, three per cent more than the UK.

The top driver for archiving in both countries was business continuity and disaster recovery, followed by compliance or corporate governance needs. But only 25 per cent of UK firms and 32 per cent of US ones use an automated tool.

Tony Coterill, chief executive of BridgeHead Software, which conducted the survey of IT managers in 165 US and 300 medium-to-large-sized UK companies, said: ‘There are interesting differences between the two markets, but there are also worrying similarities.

‘An archive involves indexing content so it can be retrieved later using a keyword search, anything else is just back-up.

‘The fact that business continuity and disaster recovery heads the list of drivers for archiving in both countries reinforces the conclusion that many people are confused.’