In our US Staffing Industry Forecast: September 2022 Update, we project 8% growth in IT staffing this year based on a carryover into the new year of strong demand for IT talent to fulfill important tech needs and carry out digital transformation projects. This represents a softening in growth compared to the 16% growth we estimate for the segment in 2022. In 2021, the segment grew 17%.
In fact, as seen in the Global IT Staffing Market Sizes and Competitive Landscape 2022, the global IT staffing market was a $78 billion market in 2021. The segment grew 23% worldwide.
IT comprises a third of the global staffing industry, which means it is the largest professional staffing segment ahead of healthcare (27% of the global market) and engineering (14% of the global market). Nearly half (49%) of the global IT staffing revenue comes from the Americas (with 93% of that coming from the US). The top three markets (the US, Japan and the UK) represent two-thirds of the global IT staffing market, with the remainder distributed widely.
As for the third largest IT staffing market, the United Kingdom, we recently released the Largest IT Staffing Firms in the UK 2022. With £650 million in UK IT staffing revenue in 2021, Akkodis topped the list, followed by Experis and Lorien. We estimate the 42 firms on the list generated £4.7 billion in IT staffing revenue in 2021, or 82% of the total UK IT staffing market.
Meanwhile, 45 of the 122 companies (37%) that made our Fastest-Growing US Staffing Firms in 2022 were IT staffing firms, including the top-growing firm (Catapult Solutions Group), which reported 150% compound annual growth in revenue from 2017 through 2021.
In particular, the last two years have been kind to IT staffing firms, but in late 2022 growth has shown a decelerating trend.
In the last Pulse report, we saw that IT staffing revenue was up 10% year over year in October and bill rate increases were expected to slow. Layoffs at large companies have helped ease the talent shortage up to this point, though it remains to be seen what effect this will have going forward.
While the exceptional growth seen up to mid-2022 is not likely to be seen in 2023, the January Pulse will at least paint a clear picture of how 2022 ended and how 2023 will begin. To participate in this month’s Pulse, keep an eye out for the invitation or visit our Surveys page.
