The majority of IT leaders expect both their full-time and contingent workforce teams to grow or remain the same, according to TEKsystems’ annual IT Forecast research. However, just one-third expect to increase salaries in 2017.
Hiring expectations for both full-time roles and contingent staff have increased steadily since 2015, with 2% bumps for each compared to the prior year.
According to the survey, contingent IT staff comprise 20% of IT personnel this year, but that is expected to rise to 24% in 2017.
The survey found 43% of IT leaders expect to increase contingent IT staff next year, up from 41% who planned to increase staff in the 2016 survey. However, 13% now plan to decrease contingent IT staff next year compared to 8% going into 2016. Forty-four percent expect contingent hiring to stay the same in 2017, down from 51% in the same survey last year.
For full-time staff, 45% expect hiring to increase next year, up from 43% in last year’s survey.
Forty-two percent of IT leaders expect programming and development talent to be the most difficult-to-find skills next year. Networking and security skills hold the second and third most difficult-to-fill positions this year, according to 29% and 28% of IT leaders, respectively. Despite rank order, the percentage of IT leaders who feel this way has declined since 2016, with networking down 8% and security down 17%.
On average, just 36% of IT leaders expect to increase salaries in 2017. This is quite low, and could stand in the way of companies trying to attract IT talent, according to the report.
“Given the competitiveness of the IT labor market, it is important for companies to evaluate the compensation packages they offer IT talent,” the report stated. “Many organizations are relying on rate cards from several years ago, and the IT segment is suffering a degree of wage stagnation.”
The survey found 2017 budget expectations rebounded and are closer to the level of expectations reported in 2015, Forty-nine percent expect their organization’s IT budget to increase, up from 37% in the 2016 forecast; 39% of IT leaders expect budgets to stay the same, down from 51% last year. Those expecting a decrease remained at 12%.
“Overall the picture looks good for tech heading into 2017,” said TEKsystems Research Manager Jason Hayman. “Budgets are up and IT departments are expecting to be able to support overall organizational demands at a high level while also being able to support business growth. It appears that some of the heavy lifting in helping other departments realize some larger scale digital transformation is over and they can concentrate on preparing for the next stages of development within their organizations. This may contribute to the shift in more staff augmentation and managed services as a labor model, where they have the ability to control and have oversight on more of their application development and project management than before.”
TEKsystems, part of the Allegis Group, is the largest IT staffing firm in the US. The online survey was conducted in October 2016 and included more than 700 North American IT leaders — CIOs as well as IT VPs, directors and hiring managers.
