Over Half of CIOs Plan to Increase Full Time Employees in IT to Accelerate Digital Initiatives in 2021 : Gartner Survey

In a survey conducted by Gartner, Inc, fifty-five percent of CIOs plan to increase their total number of full-time employees (FTEs) in IT across the course of 2021. They will predominantly try staffing growth in automation, cloud and analytics platforms, and support for remote work.

Matthew Charlet, research VP at Gartner, said, “The critical role IT played across most firms’ response to the pandemic appears to have had a positive impact on IT staffing plans, The initial pessimism around the 2021 talent situation that many CIOs expressed mid-2020 has since dwindled.”

Among the CIOs surveyed, the need to accelerate digital drives is, by a large margin, the primary factor driving IT talent strategies in 2021. This is followed by the automation of business operations and an increase in cloud adoption.

Overall, CIOs are much more likely to expand FTEs in newer, more-emerging tech domains. Growth in security personnel is necessary to reduce the risks from significant investments in remote work, analytics and cloud platforms. Data center, network, systems administration and applications maintenance are the most likely areas to see staffing decreases due to the shift towards cloud services.

“While CIOs plan to hire more staff in several areas critical to meeting changed consumer and employee expectations, most will not be able to meet their planned talent strategy goals without also upskilling or refocusing their existing teams,” said Mr. Charlet.