Global IT spending has been increasing since 2015, with some large jumps in recent years. It’s a generally positive trend, but for people who are actually working in the IT Space, where is it going? Are companies hiring more people, or just pouring more money into the software-as-a-service black hole?
I put some general and specific options on the survey, so vote below and tell us what you are seeing, and in the comments let me know if I missed anything, or if you have any advice for other community members about how to spend more wisely.
IT Spending: Where is it going?
- General Hardware
- General Software
- IT Services
- New IT team hires
- Salary increases for IT staff
- Upgraded backend infrastructure for office or work from home users
- Upgraded systems for users
- There wasn’t a budget increase at my organization
- Other, tell us below
54 Spice ups
We don’t have a budget, for large purchases or capital expenditure projects we provide proposals to the board (Family-run business) and they either allow the go-ahead, or they don’t.
The only hardware we are buying these days is laptops for new starts that may need to work from home. Main software lately is Office365 licenses which seems to be getting rolled out in small doses rather than across the board.
5 Spice ups
I know where it is not going, my paycheque. I’m not high enough to know where the money is going.
15 Spice ups
No budget increase here. I do like that you put in a joke option " Salary increases for IT staff"
22 Spice ups
A lot of money nowadays is spent on software that used to be licensed (i.e. semi-owned) which is now subscription-based, because, to be honest, the old system wasn’t sustainable for developers in the long run (e.g. most, if not all, of what we used to do with MS Office 2000 hasn’t changed, let alone improved, 23 years later, so there’s little or no incentive to keep upgrading).
The cloud is another sore point. I don’t know how common it is, but I know a few people who would happily move an entire organization to virtual servers, and this is not cheap (of course, the money doesn’t come from their checkbooks, so it’s not a difficult decision for them).
Then there are services for monitoring everything, and for large companies, this can get expensive rather quickly, as we tend to use several of these despite how much we’d like to have a single stop for these needs.
And finally, crazy requirements that some organizations must meet, resulting sometimes in just as crazy expenses.
One could say that the increases have been happening in infrastructure, despite hardware costs going down.
6 Spice ups
Corporate greed, pure and simple. I’ve had to raise my rates for the first time in over 20 years because of inflation. If people weren’t greedy, prices would stay fixed, but we’ve all got to make enough to live and stay out of debt.
6 Spice ups
whopper
(whopper)
7
Some hardware cost is being driven by Windows 11 incompatibility with older hardware.
3 Spice ups
Definitely Corporate Greed, all we hear about is either record profits or bankruptcy.
3 Spice ups
Still waiting to hear, our new FY isn’t for a few more months
Generally speaking though the bigger spends are on 3rd party services (Security, ITSM solution, Phone system etc etc). Little of it is on new hardware unless necessary. Hopefully a huge chunk on salary increases, but not holding my breath 
1 Spice up
There are at the moment large spends going on in major infrastructure due to the fact that Microsoft is only allowing PC’s of a preset age to move up to Windows 11. With this in mind companies will be forced to update their infrastructure just to be able to continue using Microsoft’s software. This also means the some organisations will be choosing tho move away from Windows OS to other options. Either way there will be increasing sums spent to keep moving forward.
1 Spice up
Corporate greed, corporations attempting to recoup monies ;lost during the “pandemic”. Pointless expenditures on so called “emissions” reduction in on-prem and cloud footprints. Mostly greed and political approaches. Nothing on salaries that I can see.
5 Spice ups
Voted for IT services - not sure if it is the right category for where I see most of the spend going. We spend so much on licensing / support it is ridiculous.
1 Spice up
A real mixed bag. A lot of spend is going to Ops expenses, as in MS365, AWS, Oracle cloud whatever, etc., plus hardware expenses to move off older machines that look at Windows 11 and say “I can’t even.”
On the flip side though, large companies like Facebook, MS and the Goog have made massive layoffs recently, but then turned around and applied to hire loads of HB1 applicants, so they are trying to spend less. Any “increase” in I.T. investment goes into some hardware, but it doesn’t seem to account for all of it. So it may well be inflating upper-Management pay scales for all we know.
All I know is, like others have said, I’m not at the level of seeing where the money does go. I just know it doesn’t come to me.
1 Spice up
The increases in IT spend here are in the costs of USELESS vendor “support” for both software and hardware. The vendor sales people convince the higher ups, that are not IT, that make purchase decisions that by buying a vendor support contract the software or hardware will work “perfectly” without any needed intervention by us the local IT people.
Somehow I never get to see that world that is all smiles, puppy dogs and rainbows…that buyers and vendors live in.
3 Spice ups
I say backend services, as this is the saas blackhole. I have several clients who are asking to revert to a reliable on premise solution along with some simpler licensing schemes.
3 Spice ups
I do freelance IT and programming services myself, and I run an “all Linux” shop. So I spend on my IT when 1) I need more CPU power. 2) Need more RAM, and the existing system cannot accept enough RAM. 3) Imminent hardware failure, or the hardware has already failed and I have to replace it (you do keep backups right? I do!).
I’ve NEVER had a forced upgrade (due to support for my existing hardware being dropped or even losing formal support), I can continue to run the older hardware and run the most up-to-date Linux distro and software if I wish and it’s just not an issue at all. Both due to the relative lack of software bloat (not needing more resources to go from one version to the next), and the fastidious attention in the Linux kernel to maintain support for older hardware. Hell, the Mesa 3D Intel drivers, not only did they maintain a driver for the older GPUs, they did a FULL rewrite within the last 2-3 years so they have a modern-style “Gallium” drivers supporting models going back almost 15 years!
(As a note, having “trailing edge” hardware sure helps with upgrade costs! I intend to upgrade my desktop to 32GB RAM, DDR3 prices have utterly collapsed and I can pick up 32GB for $40!)
I put “there wasn’t an increase” simply because I don’t schedule this stuff, I upgrade as needed.
1 Spice up
Fellas:
If you love your job, you do not complain about being paid too much. ChatGPT hasn’t realized it’s been put to work for free… yet. Burger-flipping robot, anyone?
2 Spice ups
Where’s the option for a budget decrease?
Actually, that’s incorrect, I was able to buy some 2nd hand RAM
2 Spice ups
tlatimer
(Tom Latimer)
20
Upgraded user systems, mostly forced by Microsoft’s idiotic Windows 11 policy. I have a bunch of systems that do not meet the criteria for Windows 11 but are still chugging along just fine. The IT industry has become one where hardware and/or software is deemed ‘not compliant’ with current Microsoft offerings without any specific reasons. I can’t help but think this causes an awful lot of hardware to end up in landfills for no reason. (49 years in IT, 42 years self employed in consulting).
1 Spice up
