Don't expect a major increase in IT budgets for 2016

Bad news for IT experts in the West. According to a survey, IT budgets are expected to increase by only one percent in 2016. On top of that, the IT headcount is expected to stay pretty much the same.

All of that, despite the fact that the demand for IT experts has exploded, and that Europe will need 800,000 IT security experts by 2020.

The 2016 State of IT report done by Spiceworks says 67 percent of the IT professionals surveyed cite technology end-of-life (EOL) as a driving force behind new hardware, software and services investments in 2016.

For example, some 66 percent of companies are still running Windows XP and 60 percent are running Windows Server 2003, both operating systems which have reached EOL.

"Among those planning operating system refreshes in 2016, 47 percent said they planned to invest in Windows 10 and 32 percent said they planned a Windows Server 2003 migration", it says in the follow-up press release. "Additionally, 12 percent said they’re planning a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 migration, a database application that reaches end-of-life on April 12, 2016".

The spending on security hardware, software and services will also remain pretty much the same, but companies do plan on allocating six percent of their total IT budget to security.

However, 59 percent of respondents don’t feel their organization is adequately investing in security and 48 percent don’t feel their company data is adequately protected. Additionally, only 26 percent of respondents said recent high-profile security incidents have led their organization to change its security practices.

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