Success Model Mixed Teams

According to the latest IT freelancer study by IDG Business Research Services in collaboration with the personnel and project service provider Allgeier Experts, the importance of freelancers in the IT segment is increasing: over half of the companies surveyed expect the relevance of external IT specialists to be "great" or "very great" in the next two years.

Two years ago, just 30% expected this. Yet almost 50 percent of IT specialists already come from outside the company. The rising average hourly rates of freelancers and the increasing use of mixed teams by companies also demonstrate just how important external personnel really are in view of the major topics of IT security, mobility, business intelligence/analytics, virtualization and cloud computing.

The euphoria continues to be dampened by the legal framework: At 68.2%, freelancers cited legal requirements and regulations as the biggest challenge, which is almost 16% more than a year ago.

Thomas Götzfried, CEO of Allgeier Experts:

"The continuing high demand for IT specialists shows on the one hand that the only way into the digital future is through external specialists. At the same time, the ever-increasing diversification of teams shows which long-term trends are determining the market - and how service providers must also be positioned in order to meet the requirements of companies and the self-employed today."

The results of the study were determined by IDG Business Research Services as part of an online survey, for which a total of 917 interviews were conducted and analyzed. The respondents included 578 IT freelancers and 339 companies that use IT freelancers.

Rising demand and hourly rates

According to the survey, the use of freelancers continues to rise sharply. According to the survey, 69.3% of the companies surveyed have employed external IT specialists in the last twelve months.

The proportion of companies for which such experts play no or only a minor role is just around 2.6%. Freelancers are also feeling the effects of the rising demand: the average hourly rate achieved by those surveyed increased by 4.08 euros to 88.13 euros in 2016.

And the proportion of those who were able to turn over more than 120,000 euros as self-employed persons also increased from 34.4 percent in the previous year to around 41 percent.

New personnel concepts

In order to be able to successfully cover their manpower requirements in the face of dynamic markets and rapidly changing conditions, companies are increasingly relying on mixed teams in which permanent employees and project staff work together successfully.

At 1.7%, the proportion of those who avoid such structures has fallen again in the latest evaluation and is negligible. On the other hand, the number of companies that have had good experiences with mixed teams is higher than ever and now stands at 89%.

Meanwhile, the proportion of the company's own permanent employees is only 54.9%, which is again slightly below the previous year's figure.

However, the new working structures also pose challenges for companies.

"Good cooperation between HR departments, specialist departments and purchasing is necessary to successfully set up a professional workforce consisting of internal and external staff"

says Thomas Götzfried.

"However, experience shows that most companies lack the necessary control element for this. Service providers are therefore already in demand today who pursue an integrated approach, can serve all personnel requirements in the company from a single source and meet both legal and company-specific compliance requirements."

Legal rules cloud the picture

The continuing legal uncertainty leads around thirteen percent of companies to partially forego the use of external IT specialists. The IT self-employed also continue to see legal regulations as the biggest challenge.

40.3 percent of them have not received orders because the client felt the legal situation was too uncertain.