The latest spending forecast from Gartner says that investment in IT on the part of government bodies will grow 5 per cent to total $565.7bn in 2022
According to Gartner, government IT spending is set to increase across all segments except internal services and telecom services this year.
Continuing the trend from 2021, software is forecast to record the strongest growth across all segments in 2022.
Meanwhile, as legacy modernisation continues to be a priority in government organisations, growth in the data centre systems segment will continue to slow though the forecast period.
Government bodies will continue to invest in critical application software that directly support end-user interfaces, driving strong growth.
Conversely, investment in telecom services is predicted by Gartner to decrease by 4.1% in 2022, as spending is reduced on expensive legacy systems in favour of digital service delivery models.
“The last few years of enduring pandemic challenges have mobilised a wave of digital transformation activities in government organisations across the world,” said Daniel Snyder, director analyst at Gartner.
“Governments are executing innovative activities by harnessing technology to streamline digital services, advance automation processes and evolve citizen experiences.”
The emergence of XaaS in government infrastructure
In addition, Gartner predicts that anything-as-a-service (XaaS) will emerge as a new area of investments, as governments scale digital transformation initiatives, with most agencies’ new IT investments predicted to be made in XaaS solutions by 2026.
With an ongoing skills gap continuing to affect operations for organisations generally, XaaS will make it easier for government organisations to find the right talent via XaaS operating models.
Such infrastructure requires different internal IT skill sets and places less demand on emerging skills.
“The pandemic sped up public sector adoption of cloud solutions and the XaaS model for accelerated legacy modernisation and new service implementations,” said Snyder.
“54 per cent of government CIOs responding to the 2022 Gartner CIO Survey indicated that they expect to allocate additional funding to cloud platforms in 2022, while 35 per cent will decrease investments in legacy infrastructure and data centre technologies.”
Related:
Rebuilding public infrastructure with digital capabilities post-Covid — Ryan Oakes, Accenture Public Service global managing director, and Mark Lyons, managing director for Accenture Public Service in Europe, discuss the need to rebuild public infrastructure with digital capabilities.
Why integration must be the foundation for digital change — Mat Rule, CEO and founder of Toca, discusses the need for proper integration of tech when it comes to digital transformation initiatives.
