The latest quarterly predictions from Gartner claim that IT spending in EMEA in 2022 will total $1.3trn, up 4.7% from this year, but a slight drop from the 2021 growth rate of 6.3%.
IT spending in the UK will outpace many other nations
UK spending specifically is set to rise to a projected $223.3bn (€194.6bn), a rise of 6% from this year, and higher than the projected 4.7% growth for total EMEA IT spending in 2022.
Gartner research VP, John Lovelock said:
“Organisations in the UK are on pace to increase their IT spending by $14.4bn in 2022, which is more than France, Germany, Italy and Turkey combined.
“Remote work, remote education and telehealth are bolstering IT spending in government, education and healthcare which are among the top growth industries in the UK.”
How will this investment in IT be financed?
As well as predicting this growth in spending, the report also turns the spotlight on how IT will be financed post pandemic.
“IT is transitioning from supporting the business to being the business — which means spending on technology shifts from a cost of operations (selling, general and administrative [SGA]) to a cost of revenue (COR), or possibly cost of goods sold (COGS),” said Gartner research VP, John Lovelock.
Enterprise software spending is estimated to see immense growth in 2022 according to the report with cloud spending topping the investment lists of many.
“Since the start of the pandemic, cloud delivery has demonstrated elasticity and flexibility. It scaled up when needed and scaled down when required,” Lovelock added.
“CIOs will increasingly use cloud alternatives to secure the quickest time to demonstrate value of their IT investments.”
Which segments of the industry will see the most growth?
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and desktop as a service (DaaS) are expected to be the two segments where EMEA organisations will up their spending the most in 2022, achieving 32.3 per cent and 31.1 per cent growth, respectively.
The one sector where spending is predicted to slow is device spending, hardly surprising after the unprecedented investment in PC’s, tablets, laptops and mobile devices in response to remote and hybrid working in the past 18 months.
