CIO Agenda 2026: Growing IT budgets amid stagnating staffing levels

Rising IT budgets are meeting stagnating teams. Automation and clear control will become the decisive lever for CIOs in 2026.

IT budgets in Europe continue to rise, as current forecasts clearly show. However, the way in which this money is used is changing fundamentally: more technology and services, but hardly any additional staff. For CIOs, this means more responsibility, more complexity and more pressure of expectations - without a proportionally growing team.

Why IT investments are increasing - and what this means

According to the latest Gartner IT Spending Forecast 2026, total IT spending in Europe will rise to around USD 1.4 trillion - an increase of around 11% compared to 2025. This growth will be driven primarily by

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation
Cloud services and platform technologies
Cybersecurity solutions and risk management
Data infrastructure and analytics

This increase in spending clearly shows that companies see technological investments as a lever for competitiveness and future viability. At the same time, there is growing pressure on CIOs to turn these investments into measurable business outcomes.

IT teams are not growing at the same rate

Despite rising expenditure, there is a clear contradiction: IT teams in Europe are barely growing, even though IT budgets are increasing. Gartner predicts that IT staff growth will be minimal, even if overall spending increases significantly.

Why is this the case?

1) Focus on technology and services rather than staff: Much of the increased spending is going into software, cloud services, platforms and external IT services, not additional internal staff. This means that many activities are handled by managed services, consultants and external specialists.

2) Skills shortage slows HR growth: European IT organizations continue to face a tight labor market, especially for skills such as AI engineering, data architecture or cybersecurity: roles that are currently in high demand and therefore scarce.

3) Automation is shifting role models: Many recurring tasks are supported by automation and AI functionalities. Although this reduces the need for purely operational roles, the need for strategic, monitoring and controlling functions is increasing.

The key challenge for CIOs in 2026 will not be the size of the IT budget, but rather the ability to achieve greater impact with the same teams.

What this development means for CIOs

The budget development up to 2026 makes one thing clear: the key challenge for CIOs is not the level of investment, but the way in which technology, people and external partners interact.

1) Strategic skills instead of large teams: In 2026, CIOs will be less concerned with team size and more with which skills need to be anchored internally.

2) External expertise becomes part of the IT operating model: Since not all skills can be mapped internally, external expertise becomes an integral part of the IT organisation.

Managed services, specialised partners and technology providers are increasingly taking on operational and technical tasks. This creates a new core task for CIOs: no longer doing everything themselves, but reliably managing services.

3) Automation of manual IT processes as a means of reducing workload: When budgets increase but IT teams do not, one issue inevitably comes into focus: the automation of time-consuming, manual IT processes.

In many IT organisations, operational processes still tie up a significant portion of available capacity. Often in areas where they do not create strategic added value but must function reliably.

A particularly typical example is IT support.

Conclusion: CIOs don't need to think bigger in 2026 – they need to act more effectively.

The CIO agenda for 2026 in Europe is characterised by a clear conflict: IT budgets are growing and operational requirements are increasing, but human resources remain limited.
This shifts the focus away from the question of "How much do we invest?" to "How do we organise IT in an effective, stable and sustainable way?"

Successful CIOs in 2026 will be:

Invest specifically in strategic competencies,
Treat external partners as an integral part of your operating model
And consistently automate where manual processes currently take up time and attention without creating added value.

Areas such as IT support in particular demonstrate how much potential there is in automating standardised processes – not to replace people, but to relieve the burden on IT teams and create space for the really important issues.

Are you considering restructuring your hardware support? Then I look forward to hearing from you.

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