Comprehensive IT Industry Outlook for 2026 or Why IT Industry Is Not Dead

IT Industry Outlook: AI Rules the Game

Let us face the undeniable fact: the IT industry has changed a lot, and it is not going back to the way it was. Below, we explore this transformation in detail.

First and foremost, it is essential to describe the way the IT sector used to operate before the global pandemic. Then, the whole point of digitalization lay in improving efficiency: businesses massively modernized legacy systems, moved their workloads to the cloud, and built user-friendly apps. Meanwhile, intelligence rules the IT world today. Businesses no longer ask how to digitize but how to become AI-native. As reported by Gartner, all 2026 technology trend predictions revolve around AI supercomputing, whether it is multi-agent systems or domain-specific language models. The tendency is clear: the autonomous physical AI is no longer a lab story; it is rapidly integrating into enterprise environments.

Over and above that, it is not just about global AI integration, but also about redesigning the whole business models around AI. This major IT transformation affects not only technology but also the IT workforce. According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report, the modern IT industry is inevitably moving toward incorporating more hybrid human-AI roles. This, in turn, affects the skillset requests: companies are looking for not just purely technical specialists but also creative, ambitious, and digitally proficient experts who can quickly adapt to emerging AI technologies.

Will AI replace human workers? Well, this dramatic conclusion often appears here and there, but researchers claim it is not likely to happen (at least soon). IBM's Business Trends report reveals that most IT employees now view AI not as a threat but as a tool that boosts their capabilities. Ironically, the more AI advances, the more valuable human imagination becomes. This is why the statement "AI is replacing humans," which recurs in social media discussions and industry forums, often misses the other perspective: AI is not a sign of death but rather a demonstration of a significant metamorphosis. While some traditional roles are being automated and global IT hiring trends are being affected by economic downturns, a technological revolution is happening right now in front of our eyes. And history proves that every technological revolution eliminates some jobs and creates others. The printing press did it. The internet did it. Cloud computing did it. Now AI is doing it again, yet faster, louder, and on a global scale.

IT Industry Outlook in Numbers

Numbers rarely lie. So let us take a look at the statistical IT sector forecast provided by leading analytical resources like Statista, Gartner, Zippia, DOU, and CBS, to explore the real state of the IT industry in US and around the globe.

General IT Industry Outlook:

• The global IT services market generated $1.50tn revenue in 2025.
• IT outsourcing dominates the market with $588.38bn market volume in 2025.
• The global IT industry annual growth rate during 2025-2030 is expected to reach 4.05%, resulting in a market volume of $1.83tn by 2030.
• The IT industry in US generates the highest revenue ($563.94bn in 2025), while putting a strong emphasis on cloud computing and digital transformation initiatives.
• The average Spend per Employee in the IT industry is expected to reach US$399.54 in 2025.

Cybersecurity & IT Industry Outlook:

• The cybersecurity market is expected to reach $262.3 billion by 2030.
• 77% of businesses plan to invest in cybersecurity to effectively handle growing threats.
• Nearly 45% of all cyberattacks target small businesses.
• Meanwhile, over 60% of small businesses lack in-house cybersecurity resources.
• Only about 50% of US companies with over 500 employees have a working recovery plan.
• Human error is the reason for 95% of cybersecurity incidents.
• Hackers attack internet-connected computers every minute.

AI & IT Industry Outlook:

• The global AI market is valued at $391 billion.
• The AI industry is expected to grow in value by up to 10x by 2033.
• The AI market CAGR is 31.5%.
• In 2025, 1.8% of all new job listings are in the AI area.
• Up to 75% of organizations worldwide now utilize AI to perform at least one business function.
• 90% of employees who use AI say it improves efficiency in their day-to-day work.
• AI could replace 92 million positions by 2030.
• Meanwhile, AI could create 170 million new roles by 2030.

IT Roles Outlook:

• Each year, IT jobs are growing by 300,000 in the US.
• The average IT salary in the US is $105,990.
• The most demanded programming languages in the IT industry: SQL, Java, Python, C#, C++, and HTML.
• Women represent 22.7% of the IT workforce, with 11% LGBTQ+.
• The most popular IT roles include security analysts, software engineers, and research scientists.
• California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Georgia are the most popular IT destinations.

IT Industry in Ukraine Outlook:

• The Ukrainian IT industry accounts for 3-4% of the country's overall economy.
• In 2025, IT exports increased by 42% for the first time since 2023.
• The most popular sectors in the Ukrainian IT industry include MilTech, AI/ML, analytics, and Data Engineering.
• The top destinations for Ukrainian IT services exports are: the USA ($1,135 million), the UK ($283 million), Malta ($281 million), Israel ($133 million), Germany ($118 million), and Estonia ($100 million).
• In 2025, the IT labor market in Ukraine is demonstrating positive trends with the growing number of vacancies.

Is the IT Industry in Ukraine Dead?

No, it is definitely not. Even though the Ukrainian IT market has undergone complex transformations since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the IT industry continues to exist, stabilize, and, eventually, grow.

In 2022, 40% of IT workers were forced to look for a new job. Sure, these numbers sound terrifying, but now we are witnessing the rebirth of the industry: in October 2024, 5684 vacancies were published on DOU (a record since the beginning of full-scale war). Candidates responded very actively, and as of July 2025, we have more than 7000 vacancies. Despite the long time it took to rebirth the IT industry in Ukraine, the IT market did not degrade, it prepared for a new era of growth, especially in the areas of cybersecurity, AI, and defense technologies.

After all, how did Ukrainian IT businesses manage to preserve jobs and launch new products during the war? Well, it is all about the solid foundations that were laid back in 2015-2021. Compared to European countries, Ukraine has developed a large IT labor market. At the same time, most IT companies quickly relocated to the western regions of Ukraine to ensure employees' safety.

The Ukrainian IT Industry Future Trends

The growing use of AI and other modern technologies, along with government support, is driving the rapid development of the Ukrainian IT industry.

As reported by Digital State UA, Ukraine's favorable geographic location, advanced digital infrastructure, and business support create favorable conditions for Ukraine on the global IT scene. Needless to say, international cooperation is pivotal to this sharp transformation: market-leading companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services have launched investment projects to support Ukrainian technology companies, and this is only the beginning. Equipped with global financing, modern cloud infrastructure, and innovative resources for AI development, the Ukrainian IT industry is ready to proactively enter the new stage of its evolution with solid goals set by 2030:

1. Achieve $20 billion in annual IT exports.
2. Become a top ten global IT service provider.
3. Lead the innovation landscape in AI, cybersecurity, the IoT, and blockchain.

The US IT Industry Future Trends

With a CAGR of up to 8% for US IT Services from 2024 to 2030, the US IT industry is demonstrating strategic growth powered by AI reinvention.

It is not a secret that agentic AI, generative AI, conversational AI, and edge AI are the backbones of the current IT transformation in the US. AI has expanded far beyond simple day-to-day tasks, empowering software engineering, predictive analytics, and highly personalized customer experiences. As companies balance agility with regulatory compliance and distributed workloads supported by edge AI computing, hybrid and multi-cloud architectures are becoming the golden standard. This, in turn, results in significant changes related to the IT labor ecosystem: more organizations are seeking AI governance experts, cloud FinOps specialists, and cybersecurity analysts. Consequently, these major trends signify the emergence of a new branch of the US economy, in which the US IT sector plays an even more strategic and innovation-powered role. Accordingly, the top 3 goals set for the US IT sector by 2030 are as follows:

1. Achieve full-scale AI integration across enterprise and public infrastructure.
2. Establish a secure and regulated digital ecosystem at the national scale.
3. Build a cloud-first technology infrastructure.

How Devabit Addresses IT Challenges

Forewarned is forearmed.

Instead of staying away from the current "IT death" discussion, we dive right into it to find out our own grail of truth. At devabit, we believe that there is no point in avoiding the real facts: the IT industry is heavily affected by AI hype, along with complex economic and political factors. Yet, the key to addressing these IT challenges lies in accepting reality and seeking innovative coping strategies rather than living in the illusion of the past. Bearing this crucial idea in mind, we have prepared this IT industry outlook to depict the real state of the IT industry in Ukraine, while also analyzing the US IT market and other critical IT hubs. Below, we describe our core philosophy that helps to adapt to emerging threats in the IT market:

01 / Safety is the top priority.

Living during the war, we cannot prioritize anything above the protection and well-being of our team. Our Ukrainian office is located in a secure location. At the same time, we maintain emergency preparedness and follow flexible work arrangements designed to protect our people while maintaining operational efficiency for our clients.

02 / Uninterrupted work during blackouts.

Thanks to alternative energy sources, we are not afraid of blackouts. We have implemented a multi-layered business continuity infrastructure that includes backup power generators, UPS systems, and several independent internet channels. This allows our teams to stay online and join important calls even when the city goes dark.

03 / Innovation-driven approach.

We are not afraid of trying something new. Following the AI hype, we constantly enhance our knowledge in the areas of agentic AI and edge AI to come up with the latest approaches that help our clients stay at the forefront of business competition.

04 / Supporting Ukraine every step of the way.

Every line of code, every online meeting, every morning coffee with colleagues — we owe everything to the Ukrainian army that protects us every day. And with this in mind, we constantly donate, work, and volunteer to support our country in everything we do.

05 / Real-life experience matters most.

We do not believe in shortcuts. We are all about building solutions that truly bring value in real life. We do not sell magical success recipes. We talk to real people, take fundamental concepts, and apply our technical knowledge to transform these project concepts into functional solutions that solve real problems.

On a Final Note: IT Sector Forecast Summarized

At the end of the day, where does this IT chaos leave us in 2026 and beyond? An honest answer? At a crossroads, but a promising one. Our "IT industry outlook 2025 & 2026" proves that the IT sector has dramatically changed (and nearly died), but it is slowly reinventing its purpose like a phoenix rising from its ashes. The era of isolated coding is gone forever. Nowadays, AI-orchestrated ecosystems set the new IT rules, paving the way for multi-interactiveness. Returning to the central question of this article, is the IT industry truly dead? It is essential to understand that the rumors around the death of the IT industry come mostly from nostalgia. Let us be honest: we all miss that calm pre-AI era of development and marketing, with simple, understandable rules. Nonetheless, the modern unstable IT environment has outgrown its old identity.

With innovative AI trends jumping from every corner, everyone has a chance to catch the wave. The same tendency applies to the Ukrainian IT market: adaptiveness has become the engine behind economic resilience, and the force reshaping how every domain, from technology and military to healthcare, operates during the war. To be or not to be? The answer is clear: IT will be, and in 2026, it will be bigger, smarter, and more powerful than ever.