Organizations expect to increase spending on project-based IT services and training but maintain their spend on outsourcing and talent-based services, according to TEKsystems’ annual IT Forecast Survey. However, organizations will look externally for managed project and training and professional development services.

The research found 48% of respondents expect their organizations to increase spending on staff augmentation next year, down from 49% in 2018. Fifteen percent plan to decrease spending, up from 14% in 2018.

Those expecting increased spending on outsourcing remained at 35%, while respondents who said their organization would decrease spending on outsourcing edged downward to 14% from 15% in the prior year’s survey.

For training/professional development, 48% expect to increase spending next year, up from 37% year. And 52% expect their organizations to spend more on managed/project or statement-of-work IT services.

“Organizations expect to increase spending on project-based IT services and training and maintain their spend on outsourcing and talent-based services,” TEKsystems stated. “A successful technology implementation is rarely an ‘either/or’ approach. In most cases, organizations will need a tailored solution that leverages different types of services that best fit their needs.”

The survey also asked about current difficulty finding exceptional talent. Cloud expertise, along with software engineering, security and data analytics, will be in high demand in 2019 as IT departments embark on the path toward project execution. TEKsystems notes that IT architects will not be as highly sought after as they had been in 2018, which further supports the trend of organizations moving beyond the planning stages on key IT initiatives in 2019.