New IT demands lead to budget increases across Europe and North America.

Throughout 2018, nearly 70% of UK businesses fell victim to a cyber-attack and with successful breaches damaging global companies such as Facebook, Under Armour and Cambridge Analytica, the need for more investment and bigger budgets is only growing more urgent.

In a recent report, Spiceworks found that 89% of companies throughout Europe and North America are expecting their IT budgets to either grow or stay the same throughout 2019.  Alongside this, many of the organisations across all company sizes said that they expect their IT budget to increase by an average of 20% in 2020.

The biggest driving force behind this is the need to upgrade outdated infrastructure. This includes 82% of government organisations across Europe and North America, who are looking to invest significantly more than any other industry. The UK’s NHS plans to invest £150 million in cybersecurity to bolster their defences from external threats after the WannaCry attack crippled part of the health service.

With cyber-attacks continuing to grow as a threat, it’s no surprise that governments are looking to invest more in their IT budgets to ensure that they can protect their critical national infrastructure.

The report also looked into the top factors that have led businesses to increase their IT budgets. Those based in Europe were much more likely to increase their funding due to changes to regulations such as GDPR than their counterparts throughout North America. However, while GDPR was introduced as EU law, it still affects businesses all over the world if they wish to operate with European citizens.

The biggest factors that are leading to an increase in budgets across Europe and North America included a need to upgrade outdated IT infrastructure, an increasing priority on IT projects and growing security concerns. The allocation of these budgets reveals that companies of all sizes are continuing to invest in new software and cloud technologies to help evolve and streamline their business.

The change in budgets has different factors for each business size. For example, large businesses, those with over 5,000 employees, are more likely to be building their IT budgets as they’re worried about an increasing amount of cyber-security threats. Meanwhile, medium businesses, who employ between 500 and 999 employees, can grow their budgets due to corporate tax cuts.

The report concludes by predicting that throughout 2019, companies will see their IT budgets either continue to increase or remain steady as companies continue to replace outdated technology and invest in cybersecurity to protect their infrastructure. This means that there are plenty of opportunities for skilled IT professionals to help businesses grow and protect themselves from evolving cyber-threats.