CIOs predict spending on staff in their datacentres will eclipse overall growth in IT expenditure this year, according to analysts IDC.

Despite the recession, large European organisations still expect staff spending to increase by ten per cent over the next year.

A core reason for the staff expenditure is that 25 per cent of organisations are still managing their servers and storage manually.

Giorgio Nebuloni, Research Analyst in IDC's Systems and Infrastructure group said: "CIOs are grappling with the consequences of virtualisation. While the benefits are clear, the impact on management is proving to be a challenge, new models for management will be needed to ensure that virtualisation continues to contribute positively to the datacentre."