Global technology consulting market to surpass $400 billion in 2026

Revenue growth in the tech consulting market is forecast to rise to 7% in 2026. The trend is being driven by demand for external expertise, to plug staffing gaps while firms implement new technology – while the majority of buyers are planning to upgrade their operations in the coming 12 months.

The consulting market has been trapped in a slump in recent times – with revenues shrinking for the first time since the lockdown era, according to analysis by Source Global Research earlier in the year. The organisation also suggested that the industry would return to growth in 2025, and the technology segment seems to be exemplifying this trend.

Taking stock of the global market, the latest study from Source suggests technology consulting will pass $400 billion in revenues for the first time in 2026. After slow growth in 2024, the analysts found that growth expanded from 4% to 6% in 2026, while predicting expansion of 7% in 2026 – marking a world-wide revenue hike of around $50 billion in just two years.

The study suggests that the rise is being fuelled by a rise of companies opting for technology upgrades – as investments in digital tools continues at pace. An 84% majority of buyers told Source they were planning to upgrade their technology in the next year.

Rising demand

While 84% also expected their IT staff would double in the coming five years, many of them are still relying on external expertise to plug capability gaps. Source found that firms had an opportunity to cash in in the meantime, with 81% of buyers intending to increase reliance on consultants – and two thirds of respondents expecting prices to increase, while 27% predict these increases to be significant.

This is also an opportunity for challenger firms. While four-in-five companies still said they expected to purchase more consulting services from the Big Four, dissatisfaction with the quartet’s alleged one-size-fits-all approach means there is also an appetite for ‘fresh ideas’ from firms they may not have worked with before. Specifically, Source noted that 40% of buyers are looking to recruit skills in the use of advanced technologies, as well as data analytics as the need for predictive maintenance and personalised user experiences continues to increase. Firms specialising in these niche fields could set themselves up for a bumper 2026.

Not every area may pay as well, however. Even as firms scramble to present themselves as ‘AI-native’ to buyers, three years into the hype, it is still not the field expected to yield heavy dividends. While generative AI capabilities are said to modernising large swathes of the IT landscape, with many technology buyers saying the technology is a top priority for technology investment, Source found that it remains “largely at an experimental level”, and that fewer than a fifth of companies currently make extensive use of it across their organisations.

Instead, 94% of buyers simply plan to increase their investment in digital technology over the next 18 months. A 53% majority indicated that they will do so to a “significant extent.”

Nick Jotischky, Source’s head of market trends, told industry publication ChannelPro, “Digital transformation projects are extremely important strategically and are most likely to be commissioned by CxOs, so companies are prepared to pay more for them. Investing to upgrade their legacy infrastructure is at the top of their to-do lists – it is not something they are willing to hold off on until the market becomes clearer… This is fuelling the healthy growth rate for technology consulting… Half of the companies that had conducted a digital transformation reported that they need more work to be done, in terms of updating system integration, adding extra cybersecurity defences, or implementing new technologies.”

Methodology

Source Global Research’s estimations differ to other examinations of the market. In the firm’s evaluation of consulting as a whole, the firm refers to what the analysts call the “big consulting” market – centring on consulting work conducted by mid-to-large-sized consulting firms (those with more than 50 consultants), which typically includes work that firms have carried out for mid-and-large-sized clients. This means that the actual total industry might well be worth a good deal more.

In the case of its estimations for global technology consulting, the researchers also have a narrow set of guidelines. In particular, its research does not include figures from aspects of the market including technology outsourcing, and managed technology services – both of which would likely contribute large amounts to the total revenues of the global market.