Research published by Comms-care suggests that professional services are set to grow to over 60 per cent of the channel services market in the next 12 months - four times the size of the market in 2012.
A lack of the right skills within the channel is an important driver for this increase. Professional services including unified communications and other leading technologies are the most in demand skills in the channel, making up around 40 per cent of skills shortages with unified communications taking nearly half of this share.
This is amplified by the findings that over half (52 per cent) of channel businesses highlight 'specialist IT skills' and 'offering an enhanced services proposition' as the top drivers for outsourcing over the next 12 months.
Comms-care Professional Services Director, Simon Day said: "Our research highlights that the rise of IT professional services isn't just a coincidence, but a positive move by businesses to offer an enhanced service to their customers as the need to adopt new technologies rapidly grows."
Only one in 10 channel businesses are motivated to outsource by cost savings, highlighting that a majority of businesses are proactively looking to outsource to provide clients a higher level of service through expert individuals and enhanced services.