Boosted business with IT freelancers

For the current financial year, they expect average annual sales growth of just under twelve percent. The number of projects is increasing, as is the workload of IT specialists. These are the findings of the Lünendonk Market Segment Study 2021, "The Market for Recruitment, Placement and Management of IT Freelancers in Germany", which was published for the 13th time this year.

Freelancers are all the more in demand the fewer skilled workers are available on the market. The industry association Bitkom currently puts the skills gap in IT at around 86,000 people. The demand for IT experts is high with the recovery of some economic sectors and new digitalization goals. Providers for the recruitment, placement and management of IT freelancers are expecting stable growth over the next few years after two years of declining sales.

The trend towards fewer suppliers (preferred suppliers) is reigniting the debate about possible market consolidation. Economic crises, changes in customer behavior, new market participants and changes in regulation are driving consolidation. 58 percent of IT freelancer brokers expect increasing consolidation of the market. A further quarter have no clear opinion on this. The skeptics of imminent market consolidation are in a clear minority.

Study author and Junior Consultant at Lünendonk, Lena Krumm, comments: "The pressure to consolidate is having a cross-market effect: IT freelancers are increasingly being placed by engineering service companies and temporary employment agencies. At the same time, temporary employment has become more important for IT freelancers' brokers and controllers. If this trend continues, it will potentially have a major impact on the future market structure."