2009 IT spending and staffing benchmarks

Over at Computer Economics, we've released our new IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2009/2010 study, in this, its 20th year of publication.

The current economic recession has had significant impact on typical IT budget and headcount ratios. Our new study, based on our 2009 survey provides updated metrics for planning and benchmarking IT spending and staffing levels.

Some of the key findings:

• Sectors showing the sharpest decline in median IT operational spending include discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, and retail. Median IT budgets are down 5.5%, 2.5%, and 1%, respectively in those sectors.
  
  
• Certain sectors, however, are continuing to show positive growth in their 2009/2010 IT operational budgets. These sectors include banking and finance at 4.9%, healthcare providers at 4.7%, professional and technical service firms at 4.0%, and utilities and energy at 1.3%.
  
  
• 46% of all IT organizations plan to reduce headcount this year, compared to 27% that are increasing headcount. Another 27% of IT organizations report their staffing levels will remain the same as last year.
  
  
• However, some sectors are showing continuing growth in IT staffing. For example, nearly 63% of survey respondents in the healthcare provider sector reported they were increasing IT staff this year.

The annual study is based on an in-depth survey of more than 200 IT executives who provide detailed breakdowns of their budgets, staffing, and technology adoption plans for the 2009-2010 period. The survey sample includes a roughly equal number of small, medium, and large enterprises. The respondents are stratified according to 12 industry sectors to provide a representative sample of IT organizations across all industries.

A free executive summary is available on the Computer Economics website.