2022
Global Tech
Outlook
A Red Hat report
About this report
Each year, Red Hat surveys information technology (IT) leaders and decision makers to learn their technology goals and priorities for the coming year, as well as where they are in their digital transformation journeys. This helps us more clearly understand how we can better meet organizations where they are. This year we surveyed 1,341 IT decision makers, which included a mix of Red Hat® customers and a broader industry panel.
Download the full reportMost respondents have plans for digital transformation in the coming year, with 67% in the transforming, accelerating, or leading stages.
36% Accelerating or leading
31% Transforming
19% Emerging
14% Not started or in very early stages
67%
36% Accelerating or leading
31% Transforming
19% Emerging
14% Not started or in very early stages
Of those in the accelerating stage, 52% cited the global pandemic as the top reason for accelerating their digital transformation initiatives.
Red Hat customers appear to be slightly ahead of the overall market in their digital transformation efforts.
Non-customer
Customer
19% of Red Hat customers said they were in the leading stage of digital transformation, compared to just 10% of non-Red Hat customers.
Skillset or talent gaps took the lead in this year's survey as the top barrier to digital transformation.
Skillset or
talent gaps
Technical debt
Integration issues
Compliance gaps/risk
Changing IT
management needs
Speaking of talent gaps ...
More organizations are recognizing that people are just as important to digital transformation as the technology itself.
Technical skills training
Digital transformation strategy
People and process skills training
Compliance
Organizational stability
As a result, both training in technical skills and people and process skills increased as top non-IT funding priorities for 2022.
Meanwhile, the top 3 IT funding priorities—IT security, cloud management, and cloud infrastructure—remain consistent with our findings from last year ...
IT security
Cloud management
Cloud infrastructure
IT operations automation
Optimizing legacy IT
... with IT operations automation jumping 2 percentage points this year. Automation played into other funding priorities as well.
Security automation remains the top funding priority when it comes to overall automation priorities.
Security automation
Cloud services automation
Virtualization automation
Network automation
Linux server automation
This reflects how modern DevSecOps practices—and good security practices more broadly—require continuous and automated security throughout the software life cycle.
Speaking of security ...
Security remains top of mind across all funding areas.
Network security
Cloud security
Data protection, privacy, and sovereignty
Vulnerability management
Threat intelligence, protection, and response
Network security remains the highest security funding priority at 38%, while vulnerability management jumped 6 percentage points from last year's survey to 27%.
Hybrid has emerged as the most commonly used cloud strategy ... although 18% of respondents are still defining their cloud strategy.
30% Hybrid cloud
18% Still establishing
a cloud strategy
14% Private cloud-first
13% Multicloud
12% Standardizing on
single public cloud
9% Public
cloud-first
5% No plans
30% Hybrid cloud
18% Still establishing a cloud strategy
14% Private cloud-first
13% Multicloud
12% Standardizing on single public cloud
9% Public cloud-first
5% No plans
*Totals 101% due to rounding
Private cloud-first experienced the largest drop this year, from 17% to 14%, with North America and the Europe, the Middle East, and the Africa (EMEA) regions more likely to use private cloud than the Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Latin America (LATAM) regions.
Get the full report
Take a closer look at these results and more to see what’s impacting IT funding priorities, hybrid cloud strategies, and the adoption of emerging technologies like edge computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Download the full report