Analyst predicts “most severe downturn in history of IT”

The UK’s IT industry faces the “longest and most severe [downturn] in the 50 year history of IT,” according to veteran analyst Richard Holway of TechMarketView.

TechMarketView now predicts that software and IT services spending in the UK will decline for the next five years, having previously predicted a three year dip.

This revision follows an “extensive review” of the proposed cuts in public sector IT spending. The analyst company now believes that overall public sector spending will fall 10% between 2009 and 2012, and central government spending will fall by almost 30%.

“This is the largest and most severe reduction in our UK [software and IT services] forecasts in my 25 years as an analyst,” Holway wrote today.

“In 2002 I forecast that UK [software and IT services] was now deflationary – we would do far more IT but spend far less doing it,” he added. “I believe this is now an established trend for at least the next decade too – and probably forever.”

Pete Swabey

Pete Swabey

Pete was Editor of Information Age and head of technology research for Vitesse Media plc from 2005 to 2013, before moving on to be Senior Editor and then Editorial Director at The Economist Intelligence...

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