Flat Tech Spending Projected In Wake Of Brexit

Spending by companies on technology is expected to be flat in 2016, with currency fluctuations and Brexit weighing on some of the growth, according to a new forecast from Gartner. The impact of the British exit from the European Union will "quickly affect" IT spending in the U.K. and Europe, the research company said. It believes the impacts on staffing and hiring will be the biggest near-term issue, with long-term uncertainty in work status making the U.K. less attractive to new foreign workers. Brexit could give U.K. IT departments less access to international talent, Gartner said. Offsetting some of that impact will be the continued growth of software, services and data centers. The largest increases in IT spending this year are expected to come from enterprise software, which is on pace to grow 5.8% year-over-year to $332 billion. Spending on services is projected to accelerate by 3.7% to $898 billion, while spending on data centers is forecast to grow 2% to $175 billion.