Contending with relatively low barriers to entry, IT staffing firms face a continuous struggle to differentiate. Some firms accomplish this by specializing in specific occupations or skill set, while other firms may focus on specific geographies. IT staffing firms may also differentiate by industry (or industries) they choose to serve. Doing so can lead to powerful competitive advantages against more generalist firms. For example, a commitment to a specific industry begets a greater fluency of the industry language, understanding of the unique challenges faced by buyers within it, and provides opportunities to be more consultative with clients in leveraging this industry knowledge.

SIA recently published "IT Staffing in the Financial Services Industry," a report that examines one of the most vital and rapidly evolving industry verticals of IT Staffing. Deloitte estimates banking and securities firms allocate a greater percentage of revenue to IT budgets (7.2%) than any other industry and more than twice that of the average across all industries (3.3%). It therefore comes as no surprise that we estimate financial services ranks among the top industry verticals in IT staffing by revenue. As displayed in the chart below, extrapolating from our survey work we attribute nearly a quarter, or approximately $7.1 billion, of US IT staffing revenue in 2018 will be derived from financial services companies.

Click on chart to enlarge.

IT staffing revenue by client industry

Source: SIA US IT Staffing Benchmarking Survey, 2017 

In addition to consulting with IT staffing executives of firms heavily exposed to financial services, we also surveyed some of the largest US buyers of IT contingent workers in the financial services industry for their perspectives on issues ranging from traits of preferred staffing suppliers to demand trends for agency temporary IT workers. For example, based on survey responses, the top three drivers in usage of agency temporary IT workers for financial services firms are digital transformation, regulatory pressures, and legacy system replacement cycle.

"IT Staffing in the Financial Services Industry" is available for download now to all corporate members.