A recent study by Meta Group Inc. predicts that salaries for U.S. IT professionals will increase by 10-15% through 2007, based on an improved U.S. economy and increased demand for technology workers with certain skills.

A number of current trends create a positive outlook for IT workers in the U.S. for several years to come. According to an article by Stan Gibson in eweek (December 5, 2005):

• In the next 8-10 years a significant proportion of the current IT workforce will retire.
• Computer Science enrollments at U.S. universities have seriously declined over the past five years as entering students became wary of previous fluctuations in the job market. This means there are significantly fewer CS graduates starting this year, a trend that will continue for some time.
• Offshore outsourcing has not decreased the demand for IT help. Less than 2% of IT jobs are outsourced.

Some analysts feel that sending IT work overseas has in fact increased the business capacity of U.S. companies. According to Dr. Greg Guthrie, Dean of the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics at Maharishi University of Management, “as a result of sending IT work offshore, the nature of IT/IS jobs in the U.S. is constantly changing. This makes it more important than ever to have academic programs that track the future, and not the past. The MSCS Computer Professionals Program at Maharishi University of Management does this with about a 10-20% upgrade in the curriculum each year.”