This is just one of the findings uncovered in the research firm’s survey among 501 respondents, 182 of whom were LE CIOs in North America and the EMEA and APAC regions.

While the vast majority pointed towards wanting to grow their IT teams, 14% of CIOs said that they expect their IT staff to decrease in number, and 5% expect their headcount to remain unchanged.

Additionally, 67% percent of LE CIOs plan to grow their IT headcount by at least 10% to support their enterprise’s digital initiatives, such as operational excellence and customer experience.

On the desire to grow IT team sizes, Jose Ramirez, a Senior Principal Analyst at Gartner, said: “Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs.

“Even with advances in AI, Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curves.”

However, despite their plans, many CIOs are facing hiring roadblocks. For instance, in response to economic volatility — and the global tech talent shortage — 41% of LE CIOs report slow hiring for IT roles, 35% point to decreased overall IT budget, and 29% report an IT hiring freeze.

In a bid to attract and retain talent in spite of global challenges, Ramirez said that CIOs are undertaking slightly different approaches with promising talent.

“CIOs are taking proactive steps to combat economic volatility by relaxing geographic and role requirements to expand their IT talent pipeline,” he said.

“Some organizations have found success by hiring early-career technologists and providing upskilling opportunities to fill critical technology needs.”

The research firm’s survey also found that nearly half of LE CIOs plan to invest in training programs to upskill and/or reskill IT staff to ensure their teams have the appropriate roles, skills, and capacity to meet objectives.

Further, 46% of CIOs plan to establish “fusion teams” — i.e. multidisciplinary teams that blend together technology, analytics, and business domain expertise and share accountability for business and technology outcomes — to help bridge gaps in talent and skills.

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While the tech skills gap is a far-reaching issue, the impact of it in the UK is particularly well-documented.

For instance, in May, DIGIT reported on research which uncovered that 33% of large UK companies cite the lack of in-house technical expertise as a key factor for stymying their digital transformation efforts.

Rich Wilson, the CEO of Scots talent platform Gigged.AI, recently wrote an opinion piece for DIGIT in which he suggested that “quiet hiring” — the act of encouraging internal staff mobility, upskilling and reskilling them, and engaging contingent workers — could be a short-term solution to the pervasive problem.