Companies spent around $15 billion extra a week on technology during the pandemic’s first wave

COVID-19 forces the historical surge in tech investment – study. Source: shutterstock.com

According to the 2020 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey of over 4,200 IT leaders, companies spent around $15 billion extra a week on technology to enable safe and secure home working during COVID-19. This was one of the biggest surges in technology investment in history – with the world’s IT leaders spending more than their annual budget rise in just three months, as the global crisis hit, and lockdowns began to be enforced.

Despite this huge surge of spending, and security & privacy being the top investment during COVID-19, 4 in 10 IT leaders report that their company has experienced more cyber attacks. 83% of these attacks were from phishing and 62% from malware, suggesting that the massive move to home working has increased exposure from employees.

At the same time, organizations have struggled to find skilled cybersecurity professionals to support this dramatic shift to homeworking – and report that cybersecurity (35%) is now the most ‘in demand’ technology skill in the world. This is the first time a security-related skill has topped the list of global technology skills shortages for over a decade.

Although technology spend has risen dramatically during the pandemic, the survey found that technology budgets will be under more strain over the year ahead. Prior to COVID-19, 51% of IT leaders expected a budget rise in the next 12 months, but during the pandemic, this number declined to 43%. This still represents a net increase in budgets and remains almost twice as high as IT spend in 2009 – in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

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