A fundamental shift has been taking place in IT departments across the country over the past several years. Today's IT department plays a far more significant role in an organization's bottom line than ever before, and must align itself to provide the services that will support the business and end users alike. Even with these increased demands, though, IT departments have been challenged with smaller budgets and staffing shortages.

With the economy continuing to show signs of improvement, we may be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. TEKsystems^®, a leading provider of IT staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services, recently released the results of its quarterly IT "Reality Check," a survey that compares current market conditions on the state of spending, skill needs and impact areas originally reported in the company's Annual IT Forecast released in December 2014. The most recent survey represents the views of more than 240 IT leaders (CIOs, IT VPs, IT directors and IT hiring managers) as of June 2015.