Software/IT services sector: Further recovery, less euphoria

Research evidence excerpt

Software/IT services sector: Further recovery, less euphoria

8 July 2026

European Technology/Software

On Tuesday after market close, we attended the semi-annual meeting of France’s trade Derric Marcon

+33 1 58 98 06 30 association of software and IT service companies (Numeum). The organisation presented

derric.marcon@bernsteinsg.com the results of a survey conducted among its members in April/May covering 413 companies

and CIOs, 43% of which were IT service providers, 29% software vendors and 28% CIOs.

Richard Nguyen As usual, it engaged an industry research firm—in this case Xerfi—to conduct the survey and

+33 1 42 13 54 22

richard.nguyen@bernsteinsg.com forecast growth through 2026 for the various market segments it tracks.

Specialist Sales Still recovering but less so than initially anticipated. First, we note that this survey was

conducted when the Middle East conflict was very much in the foreground and GDP growth

Kiran Shah, CFA forecasts for France had already begun to be revised down (10bp drop between late March

+44 20 3547 1533

kiran.shah@bernsteinsg.com and late April). The survey also reflects the very low morale among small firms, spanning

both software vendors and IT service providers. For small IT service firms, challenges

include the trend among clients to consolidate and narrow down their lists of preferred

suppliers, the shift toward nearshore and offshore delivery models, and the need to invest

in new technologies. For small software vendors, difficulties centre on the capacity to invest

and the need to avoid being hit by rising operating costs associated with AI-powered tools.

For these reasons (economic climate and the weight of small businesses' responses to

the survey), we are not overly concerned by the slightest hint of optimism emerging from