US IT Services Pricing Trends

Consulting rates in 2007 have increased slightly compared with 2006 because of demand in skilled but lower-level consultants; executive-level rates stayed flat. Specifically, security roles, business analysts, and business architects, as well as less experienced resources with specific application skills or strong engineering educations, have jumped. This increase of lower-tiered resources is due to the rising concern of security and the increasing focus on business processes and the componentization of services, such as service-oriented architecture (SOA). Finally, while there is little variance across bill rates from a vertical or industry skills perspective, rates for certain process skills are rising, specifically: 1) HR because of the increase in human capital focus, and 2) finance with CFO concerns and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.