Forrester predicts US business and government tech spending will continue to grow by 4.8% through 2017 and increase to 5.2% in 2018. While these forecasts are higher than Forrester’s projections following the 2016 presidential election, they are lower than the expected numbers from a year ago.
Why the change? Forrester’s latest US tech market outlook explains that moderate GDP growth, political uncertainties, and increased cloud adoption are the top three factors constraining US tech growth.
Here are additional key findings from the forecast:
- Tech staff spending will rise by almost 6% from 2017 to 2018, which is slightly up from 2016 (5.7%) but lower than 2015 (6.7%).
- Software will be the fastest-growing category of US tech spending in 2017 and 2018 at over 9%.
- As a result, spending on tech consulting services will reach 6.1% in 2017 and 7.4% in 2018.
- Cloud platform services will continue to grow at 25% to 30% rates in 2017 and 2018, but these investments are cannibalizing traditional tech outsourcing spending, which will only grow at 2% to 3% over the next two years.
- Hardware spending will remain low in 2017 with a growth rate of 1%, but there will be an uptick in 2018 leading to 4% growth in overall spending.
Source: Forrester Press Release
