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Gartner: 81% of CIOs Expect to Grow Their IT Team in 2023

According to a recent survey by Gartner, 80% of large enterprise (LE) CIOs plan to increase their IT headcount in 2023.

Only 14% expect their IT staff to decrease and 5% expect their headcount to remain the same.

"Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs," said Jose Ramirez, Sr. Principal Analyst at Gartner. "Even with advances in AI, Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curves."

Only 4% of CIOs surveyed reported AI-augmented worker as a resource producing technology work today.

Why CIOs Plan to Increase IT Headcount in 2023

"Enterprises have undertaken various digital initiatives over the past two years, with operational excellence and customer or citizen experience being the most popular," said Ramirez. "Still, these initiatives often do not meet enterprise needs quickly enough."

67% of LE CIOs plan to grow their IT headcount in 2023 by at least 10% to support their enterprise’s digital initiatives.

While CIOs are looking to expand their IT teams, many have faced roadblocks in hiring due to economic conditions. Due to prevailing economic volatility, 41% of LE CIOs report slow hiring for IT roles, 35% report decreasing overall IT budget and 29% report an IT hiring freeze.

"CIOs are taking proactive steps to combat economic volatility by relaxing geographic and role requirements to expand their IT talent pipeline," said Ramirez. "Some organizations have found success by hiring early-career technologists and providing upskilling opportunities to fill critical technology needs."

The survey also found that full-time equivalents (FTEs) do the majority of tech work in the enterprise. Full-time IT employees perform 56% of the work, while technology advancements such as automation and AI-augmented work account for just over 9% of work today.

"This reliance on FTEs to meet the demands of digital transformation explain why LE CIOs plan to increase IT headcount in 2023," said Ramirez.

How CIOs Plan to Upskill IT Talent

CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer/user experience as the three most critical technical skills in 2023

With the growing demand for IT talent, the most important candidate qualities LE CIOs look for during the hiring process are having the requisite technical skills, soft skills (e.g., communication, relationship management) and cultural fit. LE CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer/user experience as the three most critical technical skills in 2023.

Nearly half of LE CIOs plan to invest in training programs to upskill and reskill IT staff to ensure teams have the relevant roles, skills and capacity to meet enterprise objectives. Forty-six percent of CIOs also plan to establish fusion teams, and the same percentage plan to automate workflow to free up IT time.

"Recruiting the right IT expertise takes time and planning, especially for skills in architecture, cybersecurity, cloud computing and agile software development," said Ramirez. "Ensure that IT has relevant roles, skills and capacity to meet enterprise objectives. This may require embracing a blended workforce model of IT and business domain roles."

Methodology: The Gartner survey was conducted from October through November of 2022 among 501 respondents, 182 of which were LE CIOs in North America, EMEA and APAC region. The LE segment consists of enterprises with a total annual revenue of $1B USD or more.

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Gartner: 81% of CIOs Expect to Grow Their IT Team in 2023

According to a recent survey by Gartner, 80% of large enterprise (LE) CIOs plan to increase their IT headcount in 2023.

Only 14% expect their IT staff to decrease and 5% expect their headcount to remain the same.

"Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs," said Jose Ramirez, Sr. Principal Analyst at Gartner. "Even with advances in AI, Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curves."

Only 4% of CIOs surveyed reported AI-augmented worker as a resource producing technology work today.

Why CIOs Plan to Increase IT Headcount in 2023

"Enterprises have undertaken various digital initiatives over the past two years, with operational excellence and customer or citizen experience being the most popular," said Ramirez. "Still, these initiatives often do not meet enterprise needs quickly enough."

67% of LE CIOs plan to grow their IT headcount in 2023 by at least 10% to support their enterprise’s digital initiatives.

While CIOs are looking to expand their IT teams, many have faced roadblocks in hiring due to economic conditions. Due to prevailing economic volatility, 41% of LE CIOs report slow hiring for IT roles, 35% report decreasing overall IT budget and 29% report an IT hiring freeze.

"CIOs are taking proactive steps to combat economic volatility by relaxing geographic and role requirements to expand their IT talent pipeline," said Ramirez. "Some organizations have found success by hiring early-career technologists and providing upskilling opportunities to fill critical technology needs."

The survey also found that full-time equivalents (FTEs) do the majority of tech work in the enterprise. Full-time IT employees perform 56% of the work, while technology advancements such as automation and AI-augmented work account for just over 9% of work today.

"This reliance on FTEs to meet the demands of digital transformation explain why LE CIOs plan to increase IT headcount in 2023," said Ramirez.

How CIOs Plan to Upskill IT Talent

CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer/user experience as the three most critical technical skills in 2023

With the growing demand for IT talent, the most important candidate qualities LE CIOs look for during the hiring process are having the requisite technical skills, soft skills (e.g., communication, relationship management) and cultural fit. LE CIOs cite cybersecurity, cloud platforms and customer/user experience as the three most critical technical skills in 2023.

Nearly half of LE CIOs plan to invest in training programs to upskill and reskill IT staff to ensure teams have the relevant roles, skills and capacity to meet enterprise objectives. Forty-six percent of CIOs also plan to establish fusion teams, and the same percentage plan to automate workflow to free up IT time.

"Recruiting the right IT expertise takes time and planning, especially for skills in architecture, cybersecurity, cloud computing and agile software development," said Ramirez. "Ensure that IT has relevant roles, skills and capacity to meet enterprise objectives. This may require embracing a blended workforce model of IT and business domain roles."

Methodology: The Gartner survey was conducted from October through November of 2022 among 501 respondents, 182 of which were LE CIOs in North America, EMEA and APAC region. The LE segment consists of enterprises with a total annual revenue of $1B USD or more.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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