Software Development Outsourcing Statistics for 2026

Statistics about outsourcing are easy to find and hard to trust. Many figures that circulate online come from vendor blogs that quote each other without a primary source. This roundup uses only figures published by analyst firms, government statistics offices and large independent surveys, each with its publication date.

Gartner forecasts worldwide spending on IT services of $1.57 trillion in 2026, while ManpowerGroup reports that 72% of employers have difficulty finding skilled talent and Stack Overflow finds that 73% of developers now use AI coding assistants or agents every day.

This article collects 2025 and 2026 statistics on market size, reasons for outsourcing, the tech talent shortage, how developers work and how AI is changing outsourcing contracts, with a short note on what each group means for buyers. It does not include vendor rankings or rate cards from individual providers.

Key takeaways

• Gartner expects worldwide IT spending to reach $6.37 trillion in 2026, with IT services at $1.57 trillion.
• Statista projects the IT outsourcing market at about $618 billion in 2026, growing around 5.9% a year to 2031.
• Cost is no longer the main reason to outsource: Deloitte found that access to talent now ranks above cost reduction.
• The EU has about 10.5 million ICT specialists, roughly half of its 20 million target for 2030.
• 72% of employers worldwide report difficulty hiring skilled talent, and AI skills are now the hardest to find.
• AI is moving money within IT services: ISG reported traditional IT outsourcing contract value down 3% in Q2 2026 while AI-driven cloud and software demand surged.

The numbers at a glance

Market size and spending

$6.37 trillion. Gartner forecasts worldwide IT spending of $6.37 trillion in 2026, up 14.2% from 2025. Spending on IT services is expected to reach $1.57 trillion, up 5.3%, while software spending grows 15.5% and infrastructure as a service grows 29.3%.

$2.52 trillion. Gartner separately forecasts worldwide AI spending of $2.52 trillion in 2026, up 44% year over year, including $588.6 billion on AI services.

$618 billion. Statista Market Insights projects IT outsourcing revenue of about $618 billion worldwide in 2026, with annual growth of 5.85% between 2026 and 2031, reaching about $822 billion. The United States is the largest single market at about $225 billion.

43% growth, fastest on record. ISG reported that global contract value for technology services reached $42.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 43% year over year. The growth came almost entirely from cloud and software services, which rose 65%, while managed services grew 2.7%.

What it means for buyers: demand for engineering capacity is growing, particularly around AI and cloud. Strong providers fill their capacity faster in this environment, so starting the selection process early matters.

Why companies outsource

80%. In Deloitte's Global Outsourcing Survey 2024, which covered more than 500 business and technology leaders, 80% of executives said they plan to maintain or increase their investment in third-party outsourcing. 40% expect to increase it.

42% vs 34%. Improved access to talent was cited as a driver by 42% of respondents, while cost reduction fell to 34%, down from 48% in 2022 and 70% in 2020.

83%. The same survey found that 83% of executives expect third-party providers to bring AI capabilities as part of how they deliver services.

67%. Two-thirds of organizations are adopting outcome-based outsourcing relationships, up from 45% two years earlier. 29% reported using a traditional staff augmentation model.

What it means for buyers: price per hour is a weaker basis for choosing a provider than it used to be. Compare providers on the skills they can supply, their delivery track record and their ability to report against outcomes.

The tech talent shortage

10.5 million of 20 million. The European Commission's State of the Digital Decade 2026 report puts the EU's ICT workforce at about 10.5 million specialists in 2025, roughly halfway to the target of 20 million by 2030, and describes progress as stagnating.

5.0%. According to Eurostat, ICT specialists made up 5.0% of total EU employment in 2025, up from 3.5% in 2015. Their number grew 59.4% over that decade, compared with 9.8% for total employment.

57.5%. In 2023, 57.5% of EU enterprises that recruited or tried to recruit ICT specialists reported difficulty filling those vacancies. The rate was highest in Germany at 72.4% and Czechia at 70.5%, and lowest in Spain at 30.2%.

72%. ManpowerGroup's 2026 Global Talent Shortage survey of more than 39,000 employers in 41 countries found that 72% have difficulty finding skilled talent, down slightly from 74% in 2025. Germany reported 83%, the UK 73% and the US 69%. AI model and application development is now the hardest skill to find.

$135,980. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $135,980 for software developers in May 2025. It projects 10% employment growth for software developers, QA analysts and testers between 2025 and 2035, with about 106,100 openings a year.

What it means for buyers: the shortage is sharpest exactly where demand is growing, in AI and senior engineering roles. Outsourcing and staff augmentation give access to talent pools beyond the local market, which explains why talent has overtaken cost as the main driver.

How developers work

Remote and hybrid are the norm. In Stack Overflow's 2025 Developer Survey of more than 49,000 developers, 32.4% worked fully remotely and 37.1% worked in hybrid setups, while 17.9% worked fully in person.

73%. In the 2026 Developer Survey, 73% of respondents said they use AI coding assistants and agents daily. In 2025, 84% were using or planning to use AI tools, and 51% of professional developers already used them every day.

46% vs 33%. Trust has not kept pace with use. In 2025, more developers distrusted the accuracy of AI tools (46%) than trusted it (33%).

What it means for buyers: distributed collaboration is already standard practice, so a remote team is less of a risk than it was a few years ago. Ask providers how they use AI tools and how they review AI-generated code, since speed without review creates quality risk.

How AI is changing outsourcing

Down 3%. ISG reported that the value of traditional IT outsourcing contracts fell 3% globally in the second quarter of 2026, to $7.7 billion, even as the overall technology services market grew at a record pace. ISG's chief AI officer said that traditional labor-intensive work is increasingly displaced by large language models.

Up 12% in Europe. The picture differs by region. In EMEA, ISG reported managed services contract value up 12% in the third quarter of 2026, with IT outsourcing up 6%.

32%. In McKinsey's State of AI 2026 survey, 32% of respondents said their organizations had decided against buying at least one software product or feature because they could build it in-house with agentic coding tools. About two in ten organizations are scaling software coding agents, rising to 31% among larger enterprises.

40%. Gartner predicts that more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 because of escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls.

What it means for buyers: AI is changing what outsourced teams do and how they are priced. Expect providers to use AI to deliver faster, and ask how those efficiency gains show up in timelines, team size or price.

Risks and what goes wrong

70% insource again. Deloitte found that 70% of organizations have selectively brought previously outsourced work back in-house over the past five years, and 78% operate their own global in-house centers.

70% lack mature vendor management. In the same survey, 70% of executives said their vendor management function is not fully mature.

48%. In Gartner's 2025 CIO survey of 3,186 CIOs, only 48% of digital initiatives met or exceeded their business outcome targets. Among the most digitally advanced organizations, the figure was 71%.

What it means for buyers: outsourcing works best when you plan for knowledge transfer and possible insourcing from the start, and when someone on your side owns the vendor relationship. Contracts should require documentation, define handover terms and tie reporting to business outcomes.

What we see in our own projects

Market statistics describe averages. .wrk has delivered more than 140 projects since 2011, and a few patterns from that work add context to the numbers above.

• Long relationships are common. A Canadian healthcare platform has worked with the same .wrk team for more than five years, and a New York education publisher has been developed by the same two-person team since 2017. Read the healthcare platform case study.
• Speed still matters. For a US cybersecurity publisher facing an expiring vendor subscription, .wrk delivered a working AI newsletter system in 10 working days. Read the Aesop case study.
• AI is part of everyday delivery. On the NEXUS platform for the same publisher, the .wrk team used Claude as a coding agent with project-specific instructions, a security sandbox and automated code review in CI. Read the NEXUS case study.