Infographic: 2018 IT budgets are up slightly; spending focus is on security, hardware, and cloud

In July and August, ZDNet's sister site, Tech Pro Research, surveyed tech workers about the IT budget for the 2018 fiscal or calendar year within their organization. Over half said that in terms of funding, their organization would dedicate more to IT.

However, another interesting trend emerged from this survey with regard to organizational IT spending. In this year's survey, 48 percent of respondents said they felt executive management at their organization valued IT funding as much as other departmental budgets. Last year, 65 percent of respondents said the IT budget was given equal importance within their organization. The portion of respondents who felt that their organization values the IT budget less than other departmental budgets was up to 36 percent this year, from 21 percent in last year's survey.

Within IT departments, a premium is being placed on security spending. Fifty-three percent of respondents said security will be a top priority in the 2018 budget. This isn't terribly surprising after high-profile events in 2017 like the WannaCry, or WannaCrypt, attacks and the Equifax consumer data breach. Respondents listed hardware purchases, cloud services, and software purchases as other high priorities for IT funds.

This infographic contains other results from the survey. To see all results, plus expert analysis and more comparison to last year's results, check out the full report; 2018 IT budgets: Spending priorities, funding changes, and status within the organization(available to Tech Pro Research subscribers).