As part of their talent strategy and to meet critical skills demands, 81% of chief information officers in large organizations plan to increase IT headcount this year, according to a report by Gartner. The report found that only 14% of CIOs expect their IT staff to decrease and 5% expect their headcount to remain the same.

“Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs,” said Jose Ramirez, senior principal analyst at Gartner. “Even with advances in artificial intelligence, Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curves.”

According to the report, 67% of large-enterprise CIOs plan to grow their IT headcount by at least 10% to support their enterprise’s digital initiatives. However, while CIOs are looking to expand their IT teams, many have faced roadblocks in hiring due to economic conditions. Economic volatility resulted in slower IT hiring, according to 41%. Other roadblocks included decreasing overall IT budgets, cited by 35%, and IT hiring freezes, cited by 29%.

“CIOs are taking proactive steps to combat economic volatility by relaxing geographic and role requirements to expand their IT talent pipeline,” Ramirez said. “Some organizations have found success by hiring early career technologists and providing upskilling opportunities to fill critical technology needs.”

The report also found that with the growing demand for IT talent, the most important candidate qualities CIOs look for during the hiring process are requisite technical skills, soft skills and cultural fit. In addition, CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer and user experience as the three most critical technical skills in 2023.