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Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.1% from 2021, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc.  

Despite the potential impacts of the Omicron variant, economic recovery with high expectations for digital market prosperity will continue to boost technology investments.

"2022 is the year that the future returns for the CIO," said John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. "They are now in a position to move beyond the critical, short term projects over the past two years and focus on the long term. Simultaneously, staff skills gaps, wage inflation and the war for talent will push CIOs to rely more on consultancies and managed service firms to pursue their digital strategies."

Gartner forecasts that the IT services segment – which includes consulting and managed services – is expected to have the second highest spending growth in 2022, reaching $1.3 trillion, up 7.9% from 2021 (see Table 1). Business and technology consulting spending, specifically, is expected to grow 10% in 2022.   

Table 1. Worldwide IT Spending Forecast (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (January 2022)

Through 2025, organizations will increase their reliance on external consultants, as the greater urgency and accelerated pace of change widen the gap between organizations’ digital business ambitions and their internal resources and capabilities, according to Gartner.

"This will be particularly poignant with cloud as it serves as a key element in achieving digital ambitions and supporting hybrid work," said Lovelock. "Gartner expects the vast majority of large organizations to use external consultants to develop their cloud strategy over the next few years."

In 2020, within the enterprise application software market, the cloud market became larger than non-cloud market for the first time, due in part to the coronavirus pandemic. By 2025, Gartner expects it to be double the size of the non-cloud market. Cloud is responsible for nearly all of the 11% spending growth within the enterprise software segment in 2022 as organizations focus on upgrading their software stack to software-as-a-service (SaaS) to support continued flexibility and agility.

More detailed analysis on the outlook for global IT spending is available in the Gartner webinar "IT Spend Forecast, 4Q21 Update: Where Next?"  

Gartner’s IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on rigorous analysis of sales by thousands of vendors across the entire range of IT products and services. Gartner uses primary research techniques, complemented by secondary research sources, to build a comprehensive database of market size data on which to base its forecast.

The Gartner quarterly IT spending forecast delivers a unique perspective on IT spending across the hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications segments. These reports help Gartner clients understand market opportunities and challenges. The most recent IT spending forecast research is available to Gartner clients in "Gartner Market Databook, 4Q21 Update." This quarterly IT spending forecast page includes links to the latest IT spending reports, webinars, blog posts and press releases.