More UK businesses are outsourcing to UK suppliers rather than choosing to offshore, according to a survey of 50,000 business users.
Overall, 60% of firms surveyed by online business marketplace PeoplePerHour.com said that they were outsourcing more than two years ago, egged on by the promise of lower costs and in-house staff overheads. But, despite the cost focus, 61% said they were now choosing to outsource IT requirements to local firms and only 7% awarded contracts to the lowest bidders.
“You might have expected offshoring to grow through the recession as UK businesses looked to cut costs by outsourcing IT requirements to cheaper overseas suppliers,” said PeoplePerHour.com founder Xenios Thrasyvoulou.
“However, responses to our survey and analysis of transactions on the site points to one conclusion: outsourcing is growing and offshoring is falling.”
One of the reasons for this shift, PeoplePerHour suggested, was the greater numbers of skilled IT people available on the freelance market as a result of redundancy, although the trend was still noticeable before the credit crunch bit.
