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Over the past three years, the chaos of the pandemic has been felt everywhere.

IT managers suddenly found themselves supporting legions of work-from-home employees; planned system expansions and upgrades had to be put on hold; organizations needed new technologies to accommodate changing workforce requirements.

Now with people returning to offices, IT priorities are shifting rapidly, especially given the looming recession, high inflation, and stressed supply chains. Our latest research report offers some insight into where companies are allocating their IT spend in 2022.

Every year, we poll IT decision-makers worldwide about their plans for the coming year. For our latest survey, we polled 1,200 IT leaders, representing roughly $570 billion in annual IT spending. We asked them about their technology evaluations and their spending intentions to learn what they have planned for their enterprise networks.

Here are eight of the IT spending trends we deemed most significant:

IT spend projections soften

Overall, spending in the space has slowed from previous predictions. The 2022 survey projects IT spending to rise 6.7% year-over-year (YOY), down from December, when growth was expected to be 8.7% YOY.

Our research shows that organizational plans to begin new IT projects have stalled since the start of 2022. At the same time, the need for experienced IT personnel has accelerated, and hiring demand in the space has reached the highest level we have ever seen.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that more than 667,600 IT jobs will be added between 2020 and 2030, representing a 13% growth rate. The lack of experienced professionals is an issue that enterprises of all sizes in all markets will have to deal with for some time.

IT executives are advised to place a higher emphasis on employee retention as well as continuing to recruit new talent.

SMBs are growing faster

The SMB sector is showing slightly stronger growth than large enterprises. For vendors targeting the SMB market, now is an excellent time to increase marketing spend and fortify lead generation and content marketing. Smaller accounts may yield more sales in the near term.

Energy and utilities spend more on IT

Interestingly, the energy sector, which is usually conservative in its IT spending, is showing the highest budget increase. Education shows the lowest projected IT spending. Vendors should consider shifting marketing budgets to target verticals that project higher expenditures.