[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

More than a third of IT leaders anticipate increases in both permanent (40%) and temporary (37%) IT headcount in 2012, according to TEKsystems’ most recent quarterly IT Executive Outlook survey.

Of those IT leaders expecting to increase permanent and temporary IT headcount, 15% intend to do so by more than 5%. Senior IT leaders like CIOs and IT vice presidents are most optimistic about IT hiring in 2012 with 54% and 43% expecting increases in permanent and temporary IT headcount, respectively. CIOs and CTOs are also the most hopeful in terms of IT spending in 2012. Nearly 50% of IT leaders expect increases in IT infrastructure (49%) and IT applications (47%) services spending, with almost 60% of CIOs anticipating growths in infrastructure (58%) and applications (57%) spending.

“With consumerization of IT, mobility, social media, big data and security being at the top of most executives priority list’s, organizations need to ensure their workforce strategy is capable of supporting the current and future state of their business,” says TEKsystems Director, Rachel Russell. “Businesses are realizing their workforce requirements will vary from initiative to initiative. By workforce planning and effectively leveraging a contingent model, organizations can ramp up or down and efficiently get their IT initiatives done.”

When asked which IT services providers IT leaders are most likely to rely on for support in various IT areas, niche service providers and staff augmentation providers are the top two followed by systems integrators. IT leaders are most likely to rely on niche service providers for strategic planning and business/IT alignment. They are more likely to rely on staff augmentation providers as their preferred service provider for workforce planning. Staff augmentation providers are also the most likely option for IT leaders for project/planning management, quality assurance and testing, steady state support and change management.

“Businesses are looking to providers that have specific specialties to address explicit IT challenges, but they also want to partner with fewer vendors to accomplish those IT initiatives,” states Russell. “Ultimately, they are searching for providers that offer a wide range of targeted services that can address their specific needs and help them achieve their desired business objectives.”

TEKsystems, a provider of IT staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services, partnered with the Inavero Institute to conduct the survey of over 1,500 IT leaders during March of 2012.