How the calculation works
All amounts are annual US dollars.
- IT spend as a share of revenue = IT spend ÷ revenue × 100.
- IT spend per employee = IT spend ÷ employees.
- Category share = category spend ÷ IT spend × 100. Spend you don’t assign to a category shows as everything else.
- Gap = your share of revenue − Deloitte’s average, in percentage points. Avasant’s median is shown for context only, without a gap, because Avasant says its all-sector figures are not for benchmarking a specific organization.
The benchmarks (dates and links are under the calculator):
| Source | What it measures | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Avasant (Computer Economics), IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2025/2026 | Median operational IT spending as % of revenue; 307 organizations with at least $50 million in revenue (or $1 million in IT spending) and operations in the US or Canada | 2.9% |
| Deloitte, 2023 Global Technology Leadership Study | Average technology budget as % of revenue in 2022, 1,179 technology leaders worldwide | 5.49% across industries |
| Deloitte, same study, Figure 2 | 2022 technology investment as % of revenue by industry, each industry’s average multiplied by the share of the budget the technology function controls | 2.68% (construction and industrial products) to 9.18% (technology and telecommunications) |
| Avasant, same study | Average share of the IT budget | Personnel 30.8%, security 5.4%, in-house data center 9.0%, cloud plus in-house data center 14.6% |
Category shares are shown next to Avasant’s all-sector averages only where Avasant publishes the same line: internal IT staff against personnel, security, in-house data center, and data center plus cloud infrastructure. Avasant’s own advice is that its all-sector figures show overall trends and are not for benchmarking a specific organization; its sector figures are sold, not published. Deloitte’s industry figures are from 2022.
What’s missing. No public source we found gives IT spend per employee, or a recent breakdown by company size, with a stated method. Gartner’s IT Key Metrics Data and Avasant’s full reports go further but are available only to clients and buyers. Flexera’s newest public industry figures are from 2020, so they are not used.
Worked example
A professional services firm with $80 million in revenue and 350 employees spends $3.2 million a year on IT:
- Share of revenue: $3,200,000 ÷ $80,000,000 = 4.00%
- Per employee: $3,200,000 ÷ 350 = $9,143
- Against Deloitte’s 2022 average for business and professional services (6.58%): 2.58 points below
- Against Deloitte’s 2022 average across industries (5.49%): 1.49 points below
- Avasant’s 2025/2026 median (2.9%) is shown for context, without an above or below verdict
| Category | Spend | Share of IT spend | Avasant all-sector average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal IT staff | $1,100,000 | 34.38% | personnel 30.8% |
| Managed services and outsourcing | $300,000 | 9.38% | |
| In-house data center and hardware | $250,000 | 7.81% | 9.0% |
| Cloud infrastructure | $400,000 | 12.5% | |
| Software and SaaS | $650,000 | 20.31% | |
| Security | $200,000 | 6.25% | 5.4% |
| Telecom and network | $180,000 | 5.63% | |
| Everything else | $120,000 | 3.75% | |
| Data center + cloud infrastructure | $650,000 | 20.31% | 14.6% |
The firm is below Deloitte’s 2022 averages for its industry and for all industries. Its staff and security shares are close to Avasant’s averages; data center and cloud together take a larger share than Avasant’s average, so the infrastructure contracts are worth a look.
Finding savings in the split
The largest lines are usually staff, software and infrastructure, and the ones that move fastest are contracts: renewals that roll over at list price, unused SaaS seats and telecom services nobody has reviewed. Put the contract lines into the IT renewal calendar to see when each one can be renegotiated, and use the price escalator calculator to see what an annual increase adds over a term.
