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Heading into the second half of 2014, 62 percent of IT leaders expected their IT budgets to increase, and at the end of June 2014, just 47 percent reported this to be the case, the exact same percentage reported at the end of March 2014, according to a report from TEKsystems.
The survey, which represents the views of 240 IT leaders, including chief technology officers (CTOs), IT vice presidents, IT directors and IT managers as of June 2014, found just more than one-quarter (26 percent) of IT leaders expected their budgets to stay the same, while 12 percent of IT leaders expected their budgets to decrease.
Two-thirds (66 percent) of IT leaders said they were confident in their IT department’s ability to satisfy business demands, and at the end of June 2014, 73 percent reported this to be the case, nearly the same percentage reported at the end of March 2014 (72 percent).
Throughout the first half of 2014, mobility, security, business intelligence (BI), big data and cloud computing ranked in the top five initiatives having the largest impact on organizations.
Mobility and BI and big data traded spots between first place and third place, while security has consistently maintained the second spot, and cloud computing has ranked either third or fourth.
“IT leaders seem to have settled into a pattern where they recognize they will not see the budget increases they expected, yet they remain confident in their ability to satisfy demands. This indicates a closer alignment between business and IT in which business initiatives, their impact and priority level are clearly communicated to IT, allowing leaders to use their budget effectively,” TEKsystems research manager Jason Hayman said in a statement.
Developers and architects remain the only positions to place consistently in the top five most difficult positions to fill with exceptional talent in the first half of 2014.
Programming and application development has ranked either first or second, and architects have ranked anywhere from first place to fifth place.
Although down from original expectations at the beginning of the year, the hiring of temporary workers has experienced a slight increase since the end of the first quarter, indicating temporary labor may be supplementing the slower growth in hiring full-time employees.
“Additionally, it seems as though organizations are turning to temporary hiring to offset the decrease in expected full-time hiring,” Hayman continued. “This points to the need for organizations to build stronger workforce planning strategies that encompass the ebb and flow between full-time and temporary hiring impacted by the realities of an ever-changing business environment.”