Although the explosion of AI and its growing adoption, more or less forced, is causing important changes in the work of IT professionals, their role remains vital for companies. As a consequence, according to the estudio 2026 State of IT de Spiceworkspresented within the framework of the annual SpiceWorld conference in Austin (Texas), the functions performed by these professionals are increasingly in demand.
The report, based on a survey of more than 800 professionals from companies of all sizes, shows that 2026 will be a good year for IT professionals. Yes, according to Peter Tsai, Director of Technology Insights at Spiceworks«Technology is evolving, so the human aspect has to evolve too. Overall, the outlook for computing is positive, but your skills need to be developed«.
AI is gaining in “intelligence,” which only increases concerns about its potential to replace jobs held by humans. This fear is growing in the IT sector, due to the competition that AI is achieving when performing tasks related to coding. But everything indicates that far from disappearing, jobs for humans, and therefore hiring, are going to grow.
According to various forecasts, jobs related to computing and information technologies will grow by 9% between 2024 and 2024. In addition, the average salary for jobs in these sectors remains significantly higher than in most others.
Despite this, the majority of respondents said that it is difficult for them to hire qualified IT professionals. For example, in cybersecurity, an area in which having specialized experience and capabilities is crucial for 92% of respondents.
Among the skills considered valuable by professionals are also those related to AI. 63% believe AI creation skills are important, up 53% from last year. Respondents’ confidence in their mastery of these skills has also grown. Thus, 49% claim to have confidence in them, compared to 42% last year.
Among the main use cases in which IT professionals who participated in the survey show the most confidence are writing, optimizing and/or troubleshooting software and scripts (46%), generating creative content (42%), and automating repetitive tasks, as well as executing high-volume or algorithmic tasks (42%).
The overall investment being made in the IT sector is also promising. The IT budget is expected to rise 11% year-on-year starting this year, and 55% of organizations plan to increase their IT budgets.
Among the factors driving this growth are, above all, cybersecurity and regulatory compliance. And among emerging technologies, 52% of companies have already implemented AI, double the number in 2024.
Nearly four in five respondents plan to implement at least one AI-related initiative in the next 12 months, and have a median number of AI initiatives currently ranging between one and 17, with a median of 7. AI software, both on-premises and cloud-based, accounts for 2.7% of companies’ IT infrastructure investment. This does not take into account, however, the physical infrastructure for AI systems, that is, the hardware. If included, this fee could even be multiplied by four or five.
As to investment in AI, the report indicates that 42% of those surveyed are going to increase it. Therefore, the remaining 58% will maintain it, or may even reduce it. This may suggest some concern about the lack of return on investment (ROI) of AI, and it is possible that in view of the benefits they are currently achieving thanks to it, they will not continue investing until they see that this ROI increases or reaches a notable level.
