Saudi Arabia's IT market is billed as the largest in the Middle East, according to IDC.

By observing the Saudi Arabia landscape, Connectikpeople.co notes that, the government continues to invest in large infrastructure projects, primarily in the communications, government, finance, oil and gas, and consumer verticals. Meaning that, IT vendors, IT managers, IT skills will find many opportunities across

the market.

Today, Connectikpeople.co has captured the new study from IDC which announces that, overall IT spending in Saudi Arabia is set to increase 10.7% year on year in 2014 to total $11.50 billion. The consumer, communications, finance, and oil and gas sectors expected to be the biggest IT spenders during the five-year forecast period.

According to the same study, the consumer sector is expected to remain the largest in Saudi Arabia in 2014, with expected IT spend of $4.18 billion, accounting for 36.4% of the kingdom's total IT market. The combined transport, communications, and utilities grouping will be the second-largest vertical market, with such organizations investing $1.95 billion in 2014.

The public sector, which includes government, healthcare, and education, expected to remain the third-biggest vertical in 2014 with $1.78 billion in IT investments, representing 15.5% market share. ‘’The major drivers of growth in this sector will be increased social spending on e-government initiatives with the aim of improving service delivery to residents, as well as the construction of new schools and hospitals and upgrades to existing ones’

However, Connectikpeople.co observes that, the limited availability of skills is the biggest issue businesses in Saudi Arabia face and is an identifiable trend across verticals.

Therefore, according to IDC, as the kingdom's nationalization initiatives gather steam and the government continues to push organizations to comply with Nitaqat regulations, IDC anticipates that the availability of advanced IT skills will become scarcer, which will put more pressure on providers, and may result in project delays as well as increased investments in training.