CIOs having night sweats over job security

The credit crunch is giving CIOs job security nightmares.

According to a survey by the Chartered Management Institute, just nine per cent of senior IT executives feel secure in their jobs, while almost half (41 per cent) of IT managers responding to the survey also admit to losing sleep as economic gloom has deepened.

The negative attitude of senior tech execs may be explained in part by the fact the vast majority of those surveyed (91 per cent) said they have past experience of redundancy.

The study also found more than a third (37 per cent) of companies have already frozen recruitment - and over half of IT managers (61 per cent) think the UK economy is already having a negative impact on their organisation.

Fewer than half (43 per cent) of the IT execs responding to the survey are optimistic about the next 12 months.

According to data from analyst house Gartner, global economic problems are impacting IT budgets - however the analyst does not believe the IT industry is in for reductions as large as those seen during the dot-com bust.

CIO50 2008: Top 10

The UK's leading CIOs revealed…

1.Robin Dargue Royal Mail

2.David Lister Royal Bank of Scotland

3.Neil Cameron Unilever

4.Catherine Doran Network Rail

5.John Suffolk UK government

6.Gordon Lovell-Read Siemens UK

7.Paul Coby British Airways

8.Tania Howarth Birds Eye Iglo Group

9.Simon Post Carphone Warehouse

10.Ben Wishart Whitbread

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of research, predicted that even in a worst case scenario, IT spending will increase of 2.3 per cent in 2009, a revision of Gartner's earlier projection of 5.8 per cent.

"Developed economies, especially the United States and Western Europe, will be the worst affected but emerging regions will not be immune. Europe will experience negative growth in 2009, the United States and Japan will be flat," he said in a statement.

But even if budgets are not scuppered on a post-dot-com scale, the analyst believes IT chiefs must take a long term view during the current economic crisis and seek to ensure limited resources work as hard for the business as they can.

Richard Hunter, vice president and Gartner Fellow, said in a statement: "Projects must deliver the promised business performance improvements. IT shares the responsibility to make that happen. Everyone in the business must understand why change is required and what their role is. From now on, businesses can only afford IT that delivers value in terms of business performance."

The analyst advises:

• Approach each project as if it had never existed before. Ask what it does, why do they need it, and how many people you'll need to run it. Then ask if it can be done with less

• From the freshly drawn inventory make a list of what still matters, and rank it. Not everything on the list will survive in 2009

• Conserve as much of your budget as you can. Nothing compares to the power of cash on hand as IT leaders seek to aid the business in defending its heart

• Protect your people. Reassure the people who make the greatest contribution