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Roundup of agentic AI forecasts and market estimates, 2026

Roundup of agentic AI forecasts and market estimates, 2026

Agentic AI spending is projected to reach $201.9 billion in 2026 (Gartner), overtaking chatbot spending by 2027.  Four independent firms size the standalone market at $7–8 billion with 40%+ CAGRs. But adoption lags the money: only 23% of organizations have scaled agent deployments (McKinsey), and 40% of projects face cancellation by 2027 (Gartner).

Fortune Business Insights projects $7.29 billion in 2025, reaching $139.19 billion by 2034 at 40.5% CAGR. Precedence Research sizes it at $7.55 billion in 2025, growing to $199.05 billion by 2034 at 43.84% CAGR. MarketsandMarkets puts the figure at $7.06 billion in 2025, reaching $93.20 billion by 2032 at 44.6% CAGR. Deloitte’s TMT Predictions 2025 estimates $8.5 billion in 2026, growing to $35 to $45 billion by 2030.

Every major forecast agrees on direction. None agrees on scale. The standalone agentic AI market lands between $7 billion and $8.5 billion. Gartner’s broader view, counting agentic capabilities embedded across enterprise software, reaches $201.9 billion in 2026. That 25x gap is not a contradiction. It is a measurement problem, and the takeaways below reflect both realities. The following are the key takeaways from agentic AI forecasts published in 2026 so far:

Key takeaways

Worldwide AI spending will reach $2.52 trillion in 2026, growing 44% year-over-year. That number jumped roughly $500 billion from the September forecast, which had pegged the market just above $2 trillion. Infrastructure takes $1.37 trillion, 54% of total spend. AI software follows at $452.5 billion, up 60%. AI services add $588.6 billion. AI-optimized servers alone account for $421.6 billion, growing to 49%. Gartner expects spending to grow by another 30% in 2027 and surpass $3 trillion. I have tracked these forecasts through multiple iterations. The revisions keep going in one direction. Source: Gartner press release, January 15, 2026

 

Gartner projects $4.71 trillion in global AI spending by 2029. The fastest growth isn’t in infrastructure. Synthetic data generation leads all categories at 178% CAGR, followed by the broader AI Data market at 155%. Agentic AI compounds at 119%, expanding from $15 billion to $753 billion by 2029. AI Infrastructure, the largest category by dollars, grows at just 29%. The money is following the bottlenecks. Source:  Gartner 4Q25: $4.71T AI Market Proves Agentic AI and Data Readiness Are the Only Race That Matters, Software Strategies Blog, January 22, 2026 Link: https://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2026/01/22/gartner-4q25-agentic-ai-data-readiness-4-71t-market/

 

The AI cybersecurity market is predicted to hit $51.3 billion in 2026, nearly doubling from $25.9 billion in 2025. But the category masks a structural imbalance. AI-amplified security, where AI defends the enterprise, captures 94.5% of spending at $48.5 billion. Securing AI, where the enterprise defends its own AI systems, gets $2.8 billion. Enterprises are investing 17x more in using AI as a security tool than in protecting the AI itself. Both sub-segments grow at similar CAGRs (74% vs. 72%), which means the dollar gap widens every year. By 2029, AI-amplified security reaches $160.4 billion, while securing AI hits just $11.6 billion. One is a tool. The other is the thing that needs protecting. Source: Gartner Forecasts Agentic AI Will Overtake Chatbot Spending by 2027, Software Strategies Blog, February 16, 2026 Link: https://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2026/02/16/gartner-forecasts-agentic-ai-overtakes-chatbot-spending-2027/

 

AI Data sits alone in the upper-right quadrant of Gartner’s spending map, compounding at 155% CAGR with 277% growth in 2026. AI Cybersecurity and AI Models cluster above 67% CAGR. AI Infrastructure anchors the chart as the largest bubble, but grows at just 29%. Global AI spending reaches $1.8 trillion in 2025 and $4.7 trillion by 2029. The acceleration is not in compute. It is in data readiness, security architecture, and agentic capabilities. By 2028, software with agentic capabilities crosses 50% of total application software spend, up from 2% in 2024. Non-agentic software spending starts declining in 2027. Source:Data Readiness and Security Are Driving AI’s $4.7 Trillion Run, Software Strategies Blog, December 22, 2025 Link: https://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2025/12/22/data-readiness-security-driving-ai-4-7-trillion/

Gartner’s AI spending forecast reaches $2.53 trillion in 2026 and $4.71 trillion by 2029. Eight markets. One pattern. AI Infrastructure dominates absolute dollars at $1.37 trillion in 2026 but grows at just 29% CAGR. AI Data, the smallest segment at $3.1 billion, compounds at 155%. AI Cybersecurity nearly doubles to $51.3 billion. AI Software hits $452.5 billion, growing 60% year-over-year as agentic capabilities reshape the category. The growth rates tell you where the bottlenecks are breaking. Source: Data Readiness and Security Are Driving AI’s $4.7 Trillion Run, Software Strategies Blog, December 22, 2025 Link: https://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2025/12/22/data-readiness-security-driving-ai-4-7-trillion/

Nearly nine in ten organizations now use AI in at least one business function, up from 78% a year ago, but nearly two-thirds have not begun scaling it across the enterprise. Only 6% qualify as high performers where AI contributes more than 5% to EBIT. Sixty-two percent of organizations are at least experimenting with AI agents, yet in no individual business function are more than 10% scaling them. High performers are three times more likely than peers to fundamentally redesign workflows and three times more likely to have senior leaders demonstrating ownership of AI initiatives. More than one-third of high performers commit over 20% of their digital budgets to AI, and about three-quarters have reached the scaling phase, versus one-third of other organizations. Source: McKinsey / QuantumBlack, The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation, November 2025

Valued at $638.23 billion in 2024, the global AI market is projected to reach $3,680.47 billion by 2034, expanding to a CAGR of 19.20%. North America holds 31.80% market share. The software segment dominates at 51.40%, while machine learning leads by technology at 36.70%. Healthcare is expected to record the highest CAGR of 36.50% across end-use segments. Among regions, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at 19.8% CAGR from 2025 to 2034, with AI projected to add up to $3 trillion to the region’s GDP by 2030, driven by national AI strategies in China, India, and Japan. Source: Precedence Research, AI Market Size, Growth & Trends, September 2025

Nearly $7 trillion. That’s the capital outlay data centers will require by 2030 to keep pace with demand for compute power. Of that, $5.2 trillion goes toward AI-ready facilities and $1.5 trillion toward traditional IT workloads. Global demand for data center capacity could almost triple by 2030, with about 70% of new demand coming from AI workloads. Three investment scenarios range from $3.7 trillion (constrained demand) to $7.9 trillion (accelerated demand, adding 205 incremental GW). The 60% majority of investment—$3.1 trillion—flows to technology developers and designers producing chips and computing hardware. Source: McKinsey, The cost of compute: A $7 trillion race to scale data centers, April 2025

Inference already consumed half of all AI compute in 2025. That number will grow to two-thirds in 2026 and reach 75% of all AI compute needs by 2030. Global data center capacity is projected to nearly double from 103 gigawatts to 200 GW by 2030, yet U.S. data centers already face a capacity shortfall exceeding 11 GW, with the cumulative gap expected to exceed 40 GW by 2028. North American data center capacity alone will increase eightfold, from 5.6 GW in 2024 to 44 GW by 2030. Operators are increasingly deploying edge facilities closer to end users to reduce latency as inference-dominated workloads drive a fundamental redesign of data center architectures. Source: Avid Solutions, 13 Data Center Growth Projections, January 2026

 

Generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy, increasing the projected impact of all AI by 15 to 40%. About 75% of the value falls across four areas: customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and R&D. Half of today’s work activities could be automated between 2030 and 2060, with a midpoint in 2045—roughly a decade earlier than previously estimated. When embedding effects in existing software are included, the total economic benefit rises to $6.1 trillion to $7.9 trillion annually. Source: McKinsey, The economic potential of generative AI, June 2023

The global AI market hit $294.16 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to $2,480.05 billion by 2034, at a CAGR of 26.60%. The Banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment holds 18.90% market share, while healthcare is expected to record the highest CAGR of 36.50%. In the U.S. alone, the AI market was estimated at $146.09 billion in 2024 and is predicted to reach $851.46 billion by 2034. The number of AI companies funded globally in 2024 totaled 2,049, with U.S.-funded companies accounting for 1,143, signaling strong investor confidence in the sector’s expansion potential. Source: Fortune Business Insights, AI Market Size, Growth & Trends by 2034

Big Tech’s AI capex hit $405 billion in 2025, up from a $250 billion estimate at the start of the year. Sell-side analysts have underestimated AI spending every quarter for two years running. A decade ago, Big Tech’s trailing-twelve-month capex was $24 billion—15x less than today. AI data center costs are projected at $3 trillion to $8 trillion, with gigawatt capacity expected to grow 3.5x by 2030. Source: IO Fund, Big Tech’s $405B Bet, November 2025

The global AI market was valued at $371.71 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $2,407.02 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 30.6%. Hyperscalers accounted for 53% of chip purchases in 2023, spurring 156% market growth from 2023 to 2024. While demand from hyperscalers is expected to moderate, growth of 41% is still forecast from 2025 to 2026. Enterprises are moving from cloud reliance to in-house AI infrastructure investments, particularly for cost-effective inference solutions, as edge AI gains traction through AI-enabled PCs and mobile devices. Source: Markets and Markets, AI Market Report 2025-2032

At $602 billion projected for 2026, hyperscaler capex has entered uncharted territory. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta will each exceed $100 billion individually, pushing capital intensity to 45-57% of revenue. Total hyperscaler capex from 2025-2027 is projected at $1.15 trillion, more than double the $477 billion spent from 2022-2024. Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan suggest the technology sector may need to issue $1.5 trillion in new debt over the next few years to finance AI infrastructure construction. The sheer scale of debt issuance mirrors patterns seen during the fiber-optic buildout of the late 1990s. Source: Multiple sources compiled by Introl, January 2026

The number of software companies using consumption-based pricing more than doubled between 2015 and 2024, as AI introduces new variable costs that make traditional perpetual licenses obsolete. SaaS remains dominant, but the next wave is outcome-aligned pricing that scales with actual AI usage. Software businesses that successfully adopt consumption-based pricing aligned with usage and outcomes may be better positioned to capture AI-driven value and differentiate themselves in a rapidly evolving market where the cost of each AI inference adds a new variable to the P&L. Source: McKinsey, AI adjusts the software bill, January 27, 2026

Data center capacity needs for AI and non-AI workloads could almost triple by 2030, with AI capacity increasing 3.5 times and making up roughly 70% of the total. Under a continued-momentum scenario, total capacity demand rises from 82 GW in 2025 to 219 GW by 2030, with incremental AI capacity ranging from 13 GW in 2025 to 31 GW in 2030, totaling 124 GW of new AI capacity. Non-AI workloads grow from 38 GW to 64 GW over the same period. Average power densities in AI-ready data centers have more than doubled in just two years and are expected to rise nearly four times by 2027. Source: McKinsey, Data center demands (Week in Charts), May 2025

U.S. data-center spending exceeded half a trillion dollars in 2025. The U.S. and China drove a massive expansion in AI-related computing capacity through 2024, with the U.S. pulling further ahead in the first half of 2025. AI-related trade accounted for nearly half of all merchandise trade growth in that period, despite representing only 15% of total trade volume. The infrastructure boom is reshaping international commerce, with surging demand for servers, graphics cards, and related components essential to AI training and inference now a dominant force in global supply chains. Source: Federal Reserve Board, FEDS Notes: The Global Trade Effects of the AI Infrastructure Boom, February 2026

The generative AI market is expanding from $71.36 billion in 2025 to $890.59 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 43.4%. North America accounted for 43.05% of global revenue in 2025. Text remains the dominant data modality due to its foundational role in enterprise workflows, while the services segment is gaining traction for scalability and cost-effectiveness. Foundation model delivery platforms verticalized adoption across industries, and the rapid scaling of AI-native infrastructure are the three key forces driving the market as of 2025. The 43.4% CAGR makes this one of the fastest-expanding technology subsegments in history. Source: MarketsandMarkets, Generative AI Market Report, Global Forecast to 2032

The generative AI market reached $37.89 billion in 2025 and is projected to hit $1.2 trillion by 2035, a 37% compound annual growth rate. Transformer architectures account for more than 42% of technology revenue, driven by text-to-image and text-to-video applications. Software captures over 65% of total revenue. North America holds 41% of the market. Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region at a 27.6% CAGR through 2035. Financial services is expected to lead sector growth at 36.4%, fueled by fraud detection, risk management, and regulatory compliance demands. Source: Precedence Research, Generative AI Market Size, January 2026

GPUs captured 89% of AI processor revenue in 2025, but FPGA and ASIC alternatives are growing at a 17% CAGR through 2031. Hardware accounted for 68% of all AI infrastructure spending last year. North America held 40% of the market, backed by $52.7 billion in CHIPS Act grants and hyperscalers operating roughly 60% of global AI compute capacity. Liquid cooling reached 18% of AI server racks as power densities crossed 100 kilowatts per rack, the threshold where air cooling fails. Asia-Pacific is projected to grow fastest at 16.4% CAGR through 2031, driven by China’s $50 billion semiconductor fund and $15 billion in hyperscaler commitments across India. Source: Mordor Intelligence, AI Infrastructure Market Size, Trends & Growth Drivers 2031

Nearly one in four Americans has already made a purchase through AI. Morgan Stanley Research estimates agentic shoppers will drive $190 billion to $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030, capturing 10% to 20% of market share. Grocery and consumer packaged goods lead adoption, with 49% of AI-assisted buyers transacting in those categories. AI shopping agent users are projected to reach 126 million by 2030, up from near zero today, while traditional e-commerce users decline from 264 million to 149 million over the same period. Source: Morgan Stanley Research, Agentic Commerce Market Impact Outlook, December 2025 Link: https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/agentic-commerce-market-impact-outlook

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

Over the past year, 66% of organizations experienced at least one ransomware attack, with many suffering repeated breaches. According to Deloitte’s Annual Cyber Threat Trends report, ransomware, identity-based attacks, and sophisticated attack methods like zero-day exploits and AI-driven cyber espionage dominate a rapidly changing threat landscape.

Ransomware attackers specialize in making chaos pay

Attackers are using ransomware as a smash-and-grab strategy, often to finance other illegal operations. Cybercrime gangs, including those that are state-funded, rely on ransomware as a primary source of revenue as well.

Ransomware attackers aim to create widespread chaos across supply chains, amplifying the impact of their attacks. For example, United Healthcare paid a $22 million ransom in Bitcoin, demonstrating how greater disruption often leads to higher payouts.

“Sophisticated ransomware operators are increasingly using zero-day exploits as their initial access vector, with 36 percent of victims ransomed in this way. Valid credential compromise was the second most common entry point for ransomware attacks,” says Deloitte in the report.

“Phishing, remote attacks on public-facing infrastructure, and unauthorized remote desktop connections continue to be the primary sources of infiltration for ransomware,” writes Paul Furtado, Gartner vice president analyst, in a recent research report, How to Prepare for Ransomware Attacks.

Furtado notes that “bad actors are mining exfiltrated data to identify other potential sources of revenue,” further increasing the urgency to harden cyberdefenses against ransomware attacks. The following is a typical ransomware attack pattern as defined in the Gartner report.

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

Source: Gartner, How to Prepare for Ransomware Attacks, 16 April 2024

CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence teams regularly monitor every known ransomware variant. “RaaS kits are easy to find on the dark web, where they are advertised in the same way that goods are advertised on the legitimate web,” writes Kurt Baker in a blog post explaining RaaS. The post continues, “a RaaS kit may include 24/7 support, bundled offers, user reviews, forums, and other features identical to those offered by legitimate SaaS providers.”

The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community found that “transnational organized criminals involved in ransomware operations are improving their attacks, extorting funds, disrupting critical services, and exposing sensitive data. Important U.S. services and critical infrastructure such as health care, schools, and manufacturing continue to experience ransomware attacks.”

Adversarial AI’s growing tradecraft

Deloitte’s research uncovered the growing use of adversarial AI for cyber espionage, finding it’s driving new forms of tradecraft in influence operations, social engineering, underground services, and collaboration.

Adversarial AI’s goal is to deliberately mislead AI and machine learning (ML) systems so they are ineffective for the use cases they’re being designed for. Adversarial AI refers to “the use of artificial intelligence techniques to manipulate or deceive AI systems. It’s like a cunning chess player who exploits the vulnerabilities of their opponent. These intelligent adversaries can bypass traditional cyber defense systems, using sophisticated algorithms and techniques to evade detection and launch targeted attacks.”

Deloitte shares latest research into adversarial AI, ransomware in new report

source: Deloitte Annual Cyber Threat Trends report

Influence operations are the most active threat vector of the three Deloitte is tracking. AI image deception and deepfake accuracy are accelerating faster than many existing detection technologies can keep up with.

Telesign’s 2024 Trust Index found just how wide the trust gap is becoming due to deep fakes and broader influence operations. 87% of Americans hold businesses accountable for digital privacy, yet only 34% trust them to use AI effectively to protect against fraud. Deepfakes and misinformation are driving a wedge of distrust between companies, the customers they serve, and citizens participating in elections this year.

Deloitte found that social engineering-based attacks are becoming more challenging to identify and stop. Nation-states are weaponizing LLMs and using genAI to improve their ability to launch large-scale social engineering attacks aimed at harvesting privileged access credentials and gaining control of thousands of identities in an enterprise at once.

The rapid growth of Voice Cloning-as-a-Service (VCaaS) tools powered by AI, which is used for vishing attacks to clone voices for financial fraud and unauthorized access, continues to defy easy detection. Cybercriminals and nation-state adversaries are quick to invest in new technologies that yield tradecraft that existing cybersecurity systems can’t decipher, and deepfakes are among the most undetectable today.

Preventing a ransomware attack

Start with a zero-trust mindset. Any trust-based connections in a network are a liability—a ransomware attack waiting to happen. Furtado advises, “Build and execute on a zero-trust strategy that reduces the risk of attackers abusing implicit trust in environments to achieve lateral movement, employ available exploits, and gain privilege escalation to deploy ransomware.”

Furtado’s recommendations reflect a strong zero-trust mindset that seeks to eliminate lateral movement, enforce least privilege access, and monitor all network activity while hardening identity and access management (IAM) security. In short, he’s advising having as strong of a zero-trust framework as possible in place to withstand a ransomware attack.

One of the core concepts of zero trust is to assume an attack has already penetrated the network. Furtado’s key takeaways from his recent report on ransomware include the following:

  • Have a complete preincident prevention strategy that includes workspace and endpoint protection, data protection, immutable backup, asset management, end-user awareness training, and strong identity and access management.

  • Implement a reliable asset management process to identify what needs to be protected and who is responsible, paying particular attention to legacy systems.

  • Establish a risk-based vulnerability management process that includes threat intelligence (TI) to address unpatched systems.

  • Implement both macro and micro network segmentation to minimize the blast radius of ransomware attacks.

  • Build and execute a zero-trust strategy to reduce the risk of attackers abusing implicit trust in environments.

  • Implement compliance scanning, penetration testing, and breach attack simulation (BAS) tools.

  • Remove local administrative privileges on endpoints and limit access to sensitive applications, including email, to prevent account compromise.

  • Prevent access to the command prompt and block the execution of PowerShell scripts on all user endpoints.

  • Implement strong authentication for privileged users, such as database and infrastructure administrators and service accounts, and log and monitor their activity.

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2021 Dominated By Tech

  • Four of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2021 are tech leaders.
  • Amazon is the highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), and Apple (8th).
  • 15 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP.

These and many other insights are from the LinkedIn Top Companies 2021: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S. published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 300,000 jobs available right now. LinkedIn’s analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 20 countries, including Australia, BrazilCanadaChinaFranceGermanyIndiaItalyJapanMalaysiaMexico, the Netherlands, the PhilippinesSaudi ArabiaSingaporeSpainQatar, the UAE, and the U.K. 

LinkedIn is relying on a new methodology for the 2021 Top Companies Report. They’re basing the methodology has seven key pillars, each revealing an important element of career progression: the ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background. LinkedIn provides an in-depth description of how they built their methodology here.

The 10 Best Companies To Grow Your Career In 2021

  1. Amazon – According to LinkedIn, Amazon has built an innovative remote-onboarding system, and it has more than 30,000 openings now. The fastest-growing skills in demand at Amazon include User Experience Design (UED), Digital Illustration, and Interaction Design. LinkedIn’s analysis shows the most in-demand jobs are Health And Safety Specialist, Station Operations Manager, Learning Manager.
  1. Alphabet, Inc – Planning to add at least 10,000 jobs in the U.S. alone and investing $7B in data centers and offices across 19 states, Alphabet grew revenue 47% last year, reaching $13B.  According to LinkedIn, the most in-demand jobs are Digital Specialist, Field Sales Specialist, and Business Systems Analyst.
  1. JPMorgan Chase & Co. – JPMorgan now offers 300 accredited skills and education programs to its workers, and the bank has been boosting wages for thousands of customer-facing roles to $16-$20 an hour. The most in-demand jobs include Market Specialist, Software Engineering Specialist, and Mortgage Underwriter.
  1. AT&T – 2020 was a tough year for AT&T, increasing the urgency the company has to grow its wireless and WarnerMedia businesses. Due to the pandemic, the company had to close hundreds of stores. Fortunately, AT&T was able to help the employees affected by the closures to find new jobs. The most in-demand jobs are Service Analyst, Trading Analyst, and Investment Specialist.
  1. Bank of America – Bank of America rose to the challenges of 2020, quickly redeploying almost 30,000 employees to assist in its role facilitating the government-backed Paycheck Protection Program. The most in-demand jobs are Trading Analyst, Investment Specialist, and Financial Management Analyst.
  1. IBM – More than one-third of IBM’s revenue now comes from work related to cloud computing. The company’s Red Hat unit is a leading contributor to that growth, prizing skills such as Linux, Java, Python, and agile methodologies. IBM also is a leader in hiring autistic people through its Neurodiversity program. Most in-demand jobs include Back End Developer, Enterprise Account Executive, and Technical Writer.
  1. Deloitte –  Deloitte’s key activities span audit, assurance, tax, risk, and financial advisory work, as well as management consulting. It’s aiming to hire 19,000 people in the year ending May 29. Top recruiting priorities currently include cybersecurity, cloud computing, and analytics specialists.
  1. Apple – LinkedIn finds that Apple is committed to building an inclusive culture. Over half of its new hires in the U.S. represent historically underrepresented groups in tech — and the company claims to have achieved pay equity in every country where it operates—looking for an in? Apple has nearly 3,000 open jobs in the U.S. right now, ranging from its “genius” role at its retail stores to executive assistants and software engineers. 
  1. Walmart –  In February, the retail giant promised further raises to over 400,000 of its people and months later announced it would increase the share of its hourly store employees who work full-time to over 66% (up from 53% five years ago). Meanwhile, Walmart continues to think beyond the store as it ventures deeper into the e-commerce realm. Most in-demand jobs include Operational Specialist, Fulfillment Associate, and Replenishment Manager.
  1. EY – The accounting firm spent $450 million on employee training in 2020. And it is planning to hire over 15,000 people in the next year. With that much talent coming in, EY is focused on bringing in workers with diverse backgrounds, focusing on gender identity, race, and ethnicity, disability, LGBT+, and veterans. The most in-demand jobs include Strategy Director, Business Transformation Consultant, and Information Technology Consulting Manager.

Where Cloud Computing Jobs Will Be In 2019

  • $146,350 is the median salary for cloud computing professionals in 2018.
  • There are 50,248 cloud computing positions available in the U.S. today available from 3,701 employers and 101,913 open positions worldwide today.
  • Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), Deloitte and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) have the most open cloud computing jobs today.
  • Java, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Software Development, DevOps, Docker and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are the most in-demand skills.
  • Washington DC, Arlington-Alexandria, VA, San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL, are the top five cities where cloud computing jobs are today and will be in 2019.

Demand for cloud computing expertise continues to increase exponentially and will accelerate in 2019. To better understand the current and future direction of cloud computing hiring trends, I utilized Gartner TalentNeuron. Gartner TalentNeuron is an online talent market intelligence portal with real-time labor market insights, including custom role analytics and executive-ready dashboards and presentations. Gartner TalentNeuron also supports a range of strategic initiatives covering talent, location, and competitive intelligence.

Gartner TalentNeuron maintains a database of more than one billion unique job listings and is collecting hiring trend data from more than 150 countries across six continents, resulting in 143GB of raw data being acquired daily. In response to many Forbes readers’ requests for recommendations on where to find a job in cloud computing, I contacted Gartner to gain access to TalentNeuron.

Key takeaways include the following:

  • $146,350 is the median salary for cloud computing professionals in 2018.  Cloud computing salaries have soared in the last two years, with 2016’s median salary being $124,300 a jump of $22,050. The following graphic shows the distribution of salaries for 50,248 cloud computing jobs currently available in the U.S. alone. Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.

  • The Hiring Scale is 78 for jobs that require cloud computing skill sets, with the average job post staying open 46 days. The higher the Hiring Scale score, the more difficult it is for employers to find the right applicants for open positions. Nationally an average job posting for an IT professional with cloud computing expertise is open 46 days. Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.

  • Washington, DC – Arlington-Alexandria, VA leads the top twenty metro areas that have the most open positions for cloud computing professionals today. Mapping the distribution of job volume, salary range, candidate supply, posting period and hiring scale by Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or states and counties are supported by Gartner TalentNeuron.  The following graphic is showing the distribution of talent or candidate supply.  These are the markets with the highest supply of talent with cloud computing skills.

  • Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), Deloitte and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) have the most open cloud computing jobs today. IBM, VMWare, Capital One, Microsoft, KPMG, Salesforce, PricewaterhouseCoopers, U.S. Bank, and Booz Allen Hamilton, Raytheon Corporation, SAP, Capgemini, Google, Leidos and Nutanix all have over 100 open cloud computing positions today.

Cloud Computing Dominates Deloitte’s 2015 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey

  • globeCloud computing is the strongest technology investment sector for the third year in a row.
  • Biopharmaceuticals and robotics are the two sectors that have gained the greatest venture capital confidence from 2014 to 2015.
  • U.S. technology hubs (Silicon Valley/San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles & Chicago), Israel and Canada dominate while confidence continues to fall in Brazil and other emerging markets.

These and other insights are from Deloitte’s 2015 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey.  You can download a copy here (PDF, no opt-in, 70 pp.).  Deloitte has also produced and made available infographics of the key findings here (PDF, no opt-in, 4 pp.). Deloitte & Touche LLP and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) collaborated on the eleventh annual survey, which was conducted in May & June of this year. The study assesses investor confidence in the global venture capital environment, market factors shaping industries and investments on specific geographies and industry sectors.    Please see page 4 of the study for a description of the methodology.

Key take-aways include the following:

  • Global venture capital investors are most confident in cloud computing (4.18). Investors were asked to rate their confidence level in each sector. Confidence levels were measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing the most confidence. Basis points indicate year-over-year changes. Mobile (4.05), Internet of Things (3.95) and enterprise software (3.82) are the top four sectors venture capitalists are the most confident in today. Biopharmaceuticals are experiencing the greatest increase in venture capital confidence today.  Please the the graphic below for additional details.

cloud growth

  • The United States (4.17), Israel (3.90) and Canada (3.60) dominate venture capital investors’ confidence while emerging markets including Brazil continues to fall. U.S. technology hubs including Silicon Valley/San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago continue to retain and reinforce global venture capital investor confidence.  The following graphic illustrates global venture capital investor’s confidence by nation.

globe

  • Silicon Valley/San Francisco (4.28), New York (3.86) and Boston (3.77) are the top three U.S. metros global venture capital investors have the greatest confidence in.  Los Angeles (3.43) and Chicago (3.22) are the fourth and fifth most trusted U.S. metros that venture capitalists have confidence in.  $15.2B was invested by global venture capital investors in Silicon Valley/San Francisco according to the Deloitte study.  The following graphic compares venture capitalist confidence levels and venture capital investment dollars received in 2015 through Q2.

US Metro

  •  Immigration reform (61%) and patent demand reform (36%) are the top two  initiatives U.S.-based venture capitalists want addressed by policy leaders.  For non-U.S. venture capitalists, tax incentives/credits (50%), infrastructure and job creation (both 41%) are the top two initiatives they would like to see public policy leaders take on in their home country.

top two

  • Cloud computing continues across all sectors as the area global venture capital investors have the greatest confidence in.  Confidence in biopharmaceuticals grew the fastest of any sector measured by the survey between 2014 and 2015, and this is the first year Deloitte is tracking investor confidence in the Internet of Things (IoT).  A sector comparison is provided below.

sector investing