2026 Annual Benchmark

2026 IT Budget Benchmarks

Global IT spending in 2026 is projected at $6.39 trillion, up 14.5 percent year-on-year per Gartner's October 2026 forecast (revised from $6.37 trillion, up 14.2 percent, in July). Growth is driven by AI infrastructure ($879B data centre systems, +73.8 percent; $292B infrastructure-as-a-service, +31.3 percent) and GenAI software. IT services remains the largest segment at $1.56T. For 2027 Gartner forecasts $7.35 trillion, up 15.0 percent.

Global IT Spending 2026 (Gartner Forecast)

$6.39T

Up 14.5 percent year-on-year. Source: Gartner October 2026 forecast (July 2026: $6.37T, up 14.2 percent).

Five-Segment 2026 Forecast

The 14.5 percent global growth is unevenly distributed across segments. Data centre systems is growing far faster than everything else because of the AI infrastructure buildout, while device spend is lifted by memory-driven price rises. Communications services is the slowest-growing segment. The detailed forecast below is from Gartner's October 2026 release.

Segment	2026 Spend	Growth vs 2025	Key Driver
Data centre systems	$879B	+73.8%	AI infrastructure: hyperscaler server and data centre buildout, high-performance compute demand.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)	$292B	+31.3%	AI-optimised cloud compute; reported as a separate line by Gartner. Fastest-growing cloud segment.
Devices	$847B	+7.2%	Spend lifted by rising hardware and memory costs.
Software	$1.46T	+15.2%	GenAI and AI-embedded SaaS. Gartner's September 2026 AI forecast has generative AI model spending up 117 percent.
IT services	$1.56T	+4.4%	Largest segment. Consulting, application and infrastructure implementation, managed services.
Communications services	$1.35T	+4.1%	Stable recurring revenue, slowest growth. Mature segment.

Top CIO Priorities for 2026

The two survey figures below are from Gartner's October 2025 release of its 2026 CIO and Technology Executive Survey; the security figure is Gartner's security spending forecast. FinOps and technical debt are budget themes, not survey statistics.

Agentic AI

64% plan to deploy within 24 months

Gartner 2026 CIO and Technology Executive Survey, more than 2,500 respondents. Agentic AI is the shift from AI pilots to systems that carry out multi-step work, and it brings new software, inference and governance costs.

AI investment

Expected to grow 35%+ a year

From the same Gartner survey release, which describes this growth as happening inside a very constrained IT budget environment. In practice the AI line grows by squeezing others.

Cybersecurity

$244B worldwide in 2026

Gartner's 2026 information security spending forecast. Drivers include the threat landscape and DORA / NIS2 compliance.

FinOps and cost optimisation

Board-level priority

As AI infrastructure costs scale, finance teams demand visibility and accountability. FinOps moved from engineering discipline to CFO concern.

Technical debt remediation

Prerequisite for AI

Legacy systems and fragmented data slow AI adoption, so remediation work increasingly sits in front of AI projects in the budget.

What This Means for 2026 IT Budget Planning

Five Practical Implications

!Add a named AI line item if you have not already. AI pilots are becoming production systems with real infrastructure and software costs (Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, custom LLM ops).
!Check the security line against peers. IANS puts security at 10.9 percent of the IT budget in 2025, down from 11.9 percent in 2024, because overall IT budgets grew faster than security spend. If yours is well below that, find out why before the board does.
!Cloud cost management has become non-negotiable. FinOps practices (tagging, showback, commitment management) belong in any budget with a material cloud line. AI workload growth makes this acute.
!A Gartner analyst described the IT budget environment as very constrained, even as AI investment grows. Come with benchmark data (industry, size, regional) to justify the ask. The calculator on this site exists for exactly this conversation.
!Build versus buy is shifting. More capabilities are available as AI-embedded features in existing SaaS. Custom build costs less than they did 12 months ago because of AI coding assistants.

IT Budget 2025 (historical)

What 2025 IT spending looked like, lessons learned.

Spending Forecast Hub

Multi-year forecast view and segment trends.

All Benchmarks

Industry x company size matrix.

Cybersecurity Budget

Security share of IT budget: 10.9% in 2025 (IANS).

Cloud Spending

FinOps and the AI compute cost wave.

US IT Budget 2026

US IT budget benchmarks.

Build your 2026 IT budget

The calculator applies your revenue, headcount, industry and size tier to the sourced benchmark, with a category breakdown.

Use the IT Budget Calculator

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is global IT spending in 2026?

Global IT spending in 2026 is projected at $6.39 trillion per Gartner's October 2026 forecast, up 14.5 percent year-on-year (its July release had $6.37 trillion, up 14.2 percent). Growth is driven primarily by AI infrastructure investment ($879B in data centre systems, +73.8 percent; $292B in infrastructure-as-a-service, +31.3 percent) and GenAI-driven software ($1.46T total software spend, +15.2 percent). IT services remains the largest segment at $1.56T, though it grows more slowly at +4.4 percent. Gartner forecasts $7.35 trillion for 2027, up 15.0 percent.

What is the average IT budget as percentage of revenue in 2026?

The most recent measured cross-industry figure is 5.49 percent of revenue (Deloitte, 2022 data), and no 2026 measurement is published. Industry spread comes from Flexera's State of Tech Spend Report (2019 data), which is the only free source publishing the metric by industry; see the percentage-of-revenue page for its published figures and what they do and do not cover.

What is driving the 14.5 percent growth in 2026?

Five forces. First, AI infrastructure: hyperscaler buildout for AI compute is the single largest contributor, growing data centre systems at 73.8 percent. Second, AI-embedded software: Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, GitHub Copilot and Adobe Firefly are sold as per-user add-ons on top of existing licences, and Gartner's September 2026 AI spending forecast puts 2026 growth in spending on generative AI models at 117 percent. Third, cybersecurity: Gartner forecasts worldwide information security spending of $244 billion in 2026. Fourth, cloud growth: still expanding faster than baseline IT spend. Fifth, IT services at +4.4 percent as implementation and managed services absorb the AI and cloud project pipeline. Devices are growing 7.2 percent; Gartner says memory prices have more than doubled in the past 12 months, which raises device prices while pressure on affordability holds back demand.

What are the top CIO priorities in 2026?

Gartner's 2026 CIO and Technology Executive Survey (more than 2,500 respondents, published October 2025) found 64 percent of technology executives plan to deploy agentic AI within the next 24 months, and Gartner said AI investment is expected to grow by more than 35 percent year-on-year in what Gartner called a very constrained IT budget environment. Around that, the budget themes for 2026 are security, FinOps and cost control as cloud and AI bills grow, technical debt that blocks AI adoption, and the cost of AI-skilled staff. Gartner's full CIO Agenda report is a paid product; the figures here are the ones Gartner published in its press release.

Where is IT growing fastest in 2026?

By segment, per Gartner's October 2026 forecast: data centre systems +73.8 percent (AI infrastructure), infrastructure-as-a-service +31.3 percent (AI-optimised cloud compute), software +15.2 percent (GenAI and AI-embedded SaaS), devices +7.2 percent (memory-driven price rises), IT services +4.4 percent (consulting, implementation and managed services), communications services +4.1 percent (the slowest-growing segment).

Should we increase our 2026 IT budget by 14.5 percent?

Not automatically. The 14.5 percent figure is a global growth rate; it includes hyperscaler AI buildout that does not apply to most enterprises. Build your increase from your own line items instead: security, AI tooling (often a new line), and cloud consumption growth are where most of the new money goes. If your security spend is flat and you have not added AI line items, you are likely under-investing relative to peers.