According to the latest study of Lünendonk the freelance IT business is booming.
But instead of IT departments, IT-experts are booked by buying departments more often.

The crisis is over. The German economy grew by an average of 3.7 percent in 2010. Even for projects that were suspended during the crisis money seems to flow again.

Just good news for IT freelancers: Internal IT departments are overstrained and companies are increasingly reliant on external support. Compared to 2009, the demand for IT professionals increased by 11.5 percent in 2010.

The development over the last 3 years:

Due to Lünendonk there were a high number of project requests in 2008. The crisis in 2009, made the number of project requests drop. However, in 2010 the industry experienced a boom of project requests for IT professionals again.
Until 2015, experts for the IT freelance market expect an equally high, annual market growth of over 17 percent! For 2015 until 2020 an average growth of about 14 percent per year is expected.

Three ordering fields: the IT areas, the buying departments and other specific departments

The purchasing department is not only discussing charges. Increasingly they are the ones who are contacting the recruitment agencies of freelancers directly: 33.5 percent of the project requests are already made directly by the purchasing department.
Next to the IT and the buying department the individual departments already rank third when it comes to booking IT freelancers – with 19.2 percent.

Of course we would like to hear your experiences. What was the most interesting department you have worked for?