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The percentage of IT leaders who expect their budgets to increase this year is on the rise, now standing at 50 percent, compared to 45 percent at the beginning of 2015, according to a TEKsystems survey of more than 240 IT leaders.
Furthermore, the number of IT leaders who expected budgets to either increase or stay the same has been remarkably consistent at 84 percent heading into 2015, 86 percent at the end of March and 85 percent at the end of June.
Just under 40 percent of IT leaders surveyed said they expected their IT budgets to stay the same as they entered 2015, but fewer say this is the case heading into the second half of the year.
At the end of March, 43 percent indicated budgets would stay the same. At the end of June, the figure was 35 percent.
The TEKsystems quarterly forecast studies the effects of current market conditions on spending, skill needs and impact areas. The latest survey found that the percentage of IT leaders confident about their department’s ability to satisfy business demands is also at a yearly high—74 percent at the end of June as compared to 71 percent entering the year..
Since the beginning of 2015, open source, voice over IP (VoIP) and unified communications, social technologies and consumerization of IT rank among the least impactful initiatives, while security, mobility, cloud computing and business intelligence (BI) and Big Data ranked in the top five initiatives with the largest impact on organizations.
The initiatives that fluctuated the most were development operations (DevOps), which rose seven spots, and data center consolidation, which fell six spots.
On the hiring front, security professionals, programmers and developers, software engineers and project managers remained in the top five most difficult positions to fill in the first half of 2015.
In comparison to the beginning of the year, security professionals rose from the fifth spot to the top spot. Programmers and developers fell from the top spot to third place, and software engineers fell from second place to fourth place.
Overall, nearly half (48 percent) of IT leaders said they expected increases in full-time hiring as they entered 2015, while a little more than one-third (36 percent) of IT leaders said they expected increases in temporary hiring as they entered 2015, indicating hiring has hit a summertime lull.
However, Jason Hayman, a TEKsystems research manager, noted the report strongly indicated confidence in IT departments’ abilities to meet business demands and demonstrates an understanding of how to align IT initiatives with the needs of the organization.