Over three quarters of UK mid-market businesses anticipate a hike in IT budgets this year, reckons Node4 in a report it compiled.
The survey showed that 35% of IT decision makers in the mid-market expect budget rises of 5-10%, while 22% see a hike of over 10% with the key investment areas being business growth, security and reducing operational costs.
Hosted and cloud-based services will take a meaty share of mid-market IT budgets in 2017, with IaaS (20%) and managed security (16%) the top two cloud spending priorities, followed by managed services (12%) and DR (11%).
Paul Bryce, Business Development Director, Node4, said: "Mid-tier companies are the engine of the UK's economy so it is promising to see investment taking place in the IT infrastructure that will help to fuel further growth.
"It is no surprise that mid-market companies are embracing the cloud which affords a huge opportunity to drive efficiency, agility, scalability, and to empower workforces.
"Despite the current challenging business climate, the mid-market is the fastest growing sector in the UK economy and policy-makers, investors and IT vendors alike should focus on enabling this growth."