Each year, Bluewolf places thousands of IT Staffing contract workers. Additionally, we have over 3,000 cloud-based implementations with clients. By compiling all this data over the years, we’ve become perfectly positioned to share market trends, and exactly how company managers have been spending their IT dollars. So we thought, why not? We analyzed year-on-year growth patterns and market trends, and the Bluewolf Technology Outlook was born. Here’s a round-up of the top 5 tech trends we observed emerge in the past year.

Top 5 Tech Trends to Watch

Although demand varies by industry, the overarching Tech Trends Transforming IT through 2012 are Mobile, Big Data, User Engagement, the Consumerization of IT and, unsurprisingly, Cloud Computing.

• Mobile is at the forefront of the pack thanks to increased HTML5 adoption as well as an exponentially growing pool of apps designed for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices. As such platforms mature into the business-to-business space, winners and losers in this category are already emerging.

• Big Data represents everything from data storage, warehousing and integration to business intelligence and analytics. Overall demand for Big Data technologies has remained steady for the dominant players. However, we have seen a spike in growth for certain technologies.

• User Engagement is increasingly becoming a priority for its ability to aid in user adoption of internal and external facing projects. Bluewolf IT Staffing has seen steady growth in demand for front-end developers and increase in demand for UI and UX designers.

• Consumerization of IT has transformed how we work. Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, “smart gadgets” have flooded the workplace. As more non-tech people become tech-dependent to do their jobs and as Gen Y enters the workforce, consumer and collaborative technologies have seen increased demand.

• Cloud Computing encompasses more of the IT stack then just business applications. While on-premise infrastructure still dominates the IT landscape, over the last 12 months, cloud technology placements for Salesforce and Eloqua both increased by 200%.

In addition to these trends transforming IT, the report also dives deeper into:

• Growth rates of specific technologies
• Industry adoption patterns for Financial Services, Retail, Media, and High Tech
• Tips for reeling in and retaining Top IT Talent

Get the whole picture by downloading out 2011-2012 Technology Outlook.