The results of BridgeView’s 2025 Outlook Survey can be found below. If you’re like us and interested in comparing how mindsets have shifted from last year, you can still find 2024's takeaways here.
The majority of this year’s respondents anticipate the landscape of their teams to change over the course of 2025.
Over 22% of organizations plan to increase the size of their technology teams by over 20% (a 4% increase when compared to our 2024 results) pointing to growing economic momentum and optimism. This, combined with a 2% reduction (20% to 18%) in respondents anticipating a reduction in headcount, suggests that organizations foresee a slightly less volatile and more positive environment for their teams in 2025.
In 2024 a majority (62%) of respondents expected to adopt a hybrid working model, that number has shifted sharply (52%) for 2025. While much has been made of a shift back to in-office work, our respondents painted a very different picture, with fully remote and in-office work environments both seeing a 5% increase. Pointing to organizations choosing a side in a much more balanced way than the frequent headlines may suggest.
When it comes to hiring, getting people to the office is the least of concern (4%), with most respondents (56%) agreeing that the real challenge lies in finding the right skill sets within the constraints of their budgets.
In 2025, technology leaders’ priorities appear to be focused on continuous improvement. Over half of our respondents listed improving cybersecurity and upskilling of their existing team as key initiatives for this year.
Digital transformation continues to be an area of focus with 74% of respondents looking to either implement new technology or re-platform their legacy systems.
41% of our respondents listed the implementation of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning as an initiative for 2025 but organizations reside on this journey vary greatly.
18.5% of organizations reported having already adopted A.I. and using it for years, while the other 81.5% are just starting to experiment with it or still looking for the best way for it to make an impact within their environments.
Organizations have a variety of concerns heading into 2025, but those concerns have shifted significantly when compared to 2024. Economic uncertainty saw the largest increase year over year with 48% of respondents pointing to it as a reason for losing sleep. Beyond that, cyber threats continue to be top of mind, with 41% of organizations listing it as a major issue.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that cybersecurity and threat analysis skillsets were identified far-and-away (52%) as the most valuable for IT professionals. A.I./ML skill sets also appear to be in demand with 37% of organizations noting its importance.
Overall, the outlook for 2025 appears to be a bit of a mixed bag. While optimism for growth has increased, lingering concerns around economic headwinds remain front-of-mind for IT decision makers. As a result, combating cyber threats, upskilling teams and leveraging AI will be the driving forces to help leaders do more with less and mitigate risk for their organizations.