DETROIT ? A new report shows 15 percent of Detroit-area chief information officers surveyed plan to expand their Information Technology teams in the second half of 2014, up 3 percent from the previous six months. Another 74 percent plan to hire only for open IT positions, while 10 percent plan to put their IT hiring plans on hold through the end of the year.

The survey is called the Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trend Report.

“SQL migrations and mobile applications development projects continue to fuel IT hiring in Detroit,” said Jeremy Brodsky, Detroit branch manager of Robert Half Technology. “In addition to full-time hires, we’re seeing increased contract-to-hire and project-based roles on both the infrastructure and development sides.”

The 2014 hiring projections are based on interviews with 100 CIOs who were asked to provide a six-month hiring outlook. The surveys were developed by Robert Half Technology and conducted by an independent research firm. In order to ensure that companies from all segments were represented, the sample was stratified by number of employees. The results were then weighted to reflect the proper number of employees in the greater metropolitan Detroit area. Robert Half Technology is a leading provider of IT professionals on a project and full-time basis and has been tracking IT hiring activity in the United States since 1995.

Recruiting Challenges

In terms of recruiting, 53 percent of Detroit CIOs said it’s somewhat or very challenging to find skilled IT professionals today. It is most challenging to find skilled talent in the functional areas of networking (18 percent), applications development (18 percent) and help desk/technical support (16 percent).

Confidence in Business Growth and IT Investments

The survey results suggest that Detroit CIOs are optimistic about their companies’ growth and IT investments. Ninety-four percent of CIOs reported being somewhat or very confident in their companies’ prospects for growth in the second half of 2014. This compares to 92 percent in the first half of the year.

Seventy-eight percent of CIOs also said they are confident that their firms will invest in IT projects in the second half of 2014. This compares to 76 percent in the first six months of the year.

Skills in Demand

Fifty-nine percent of Detroit technology executives surveyed said that network administration is among the skill sets in greatest demand within their IT departments. Desktop support and database management followed, with 57 percent and 52 percent of the response, respectively.