Gartner expects IT budgets to increase 2.5% in 2005

IT budgets are expected to increase by an average of 2.5% in 2005, their biggest growth since 2001, according to Gartner. CIOs will focus their spending on security and business intelligence tools to tackle the issues of security breaches and business process improvement. Other challenges in 2005 include the difficulty in finding the right employees. Only 39% of CIOs believe they have the right people to meet current and future business needs. IT budgets increased by 1.4% in 2004, remained constant in 2003 and increased by 1.3% in 2002, according to the Gartner Executive Program, the unit of Gartner that carried out the research. This compares with growth rates of between 9.7 and 15.9% between 1998 and 2001.