Each January BCS produce a report informed by IT leaders. This year it was also the basis of the inaugural IT Leaders Forum event - ‘The Adaptive CIO’. Brian Runciman MBCS looks at some of the takeaways on concerns, priorities and skills gaps.

Like no other year, 2020 showed just how reliant all organisations are on the IT function. The effect on IT leaders, in the tech and people context, has been commensurately large.

With 2020 showing us how much we need IT expertise, IT competency and dependable systems, the so-called ‘soft skills’ of caring for the team and empathetic leadership have also come into their own.

This is shown in some of the biggest changes in numbers seen in the BCS IT Leaders survey in recent years. But the numbers also demonstrate that when IT leaders raise issues that need addressing (security and cloud loom large, yet again) - they know of what they speak.

It is hardly surprising that responders this year have had things to say about good people management, business continuity strategy and, as always, where they feel their concerns and gaps are most pressing.