According to TEKsystems’ IT executive outlook survey, 36 percent of information technology leaders plan to add contingent information technology headcount during the second quarter, and 41 percent plan to add permanent IT headcount.

IT executives are most optimistic about hiring in the finance and healthcare industries. Fifty-six percent of IT executives in the finance industry plan to add contingent staff, and 61 percent plan to increase permanent headcount. In the healthcare industry, 46 plan to hire more contingents and 46 percent plan to hire more permanent staff during the second quarter.

“This survey finding certainly corresponds to our internal data,” says TEKsystems Market Research Manager Tania Lavin. “The high propensity to add headcount is likely related to recent government regulations affecting how data is gathered, secured, stored and shared in these industries.”

Competition for top IT talent is also increasing, according to the survey. IT leaders say that it is more difficult this quarter compared to last quarter to fill 16 of the 17 skill sets questioned within the survey. Consistently, more IT executives report having difficulty hiring enterprise architects, at 69 percent. Cloud architects are also difficult to find (67 percent). Other hard-to-fill skill sets include business intelligence specialist (59 percent), security specialists (58 percent) and network architects (55 percent).

More than 1,000 IT leaders in the U.S. and Canada were surveyed.