The information security market will grow 8.7 percent, to $124 billion, in 2019, according to a forecast released today by research firm Gartner.

“Security leaders are striving to help their organizations securely use technology platforms to become more competitive and drive growth for the business,” said Siddharth Deshpande, research director at Gartner. Deshpande said the shortage of skilled cybersecurity workers will be a major driver of higher spending next year, echoing a topic that has long concerned U.S. lawmakers.

Gartner found that “an increased focus on building detection and response capabilities, privacy regulations such as GDPR [the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation], and the need to address digital business risks are the main drivers for global security spending through 2019.”

The inclusion of GDPR highlights the increasing importance of privacy in the information security market. Gartner found privacy concerns will be the reason behind at least 10 percent of market demand, and identified areas such as identity and access management, identity governance and administration, and data loss prevention as products that could be impacted by the growth in privacy spending.

However, all segments of the market are expected to see growth, according to Gartner’s predictions. The report highlights security as a service as a strong trend, and predicts that managed and subscription services will make up at least half of security software by 2020. “Security as a service is on the way to surpassing on-premises deployments, and hybrid deployments are enticing buyers.”

The report also notes the importance of information security to digital transformation.

“Security is a key factor in the uptake of that transformation process for regulated data, critical operations and intellectual property protection spanning public cloud, SaaS and the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices,” the report says.

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