sean Sweeney of Forrester has a report with the same title, below are some interesting excerpts from the same:

Consulting rates in 2007 have increased slightly compared with 2006 because of demand in skilled but lower-level consultants; executive-level rates stayed flat. Specifically, security roles, business analysts, and business architects, as well as less experienced resources with specific application skills or strong engineering educations, have jumped. This increase of lower-tiered resources is due to the rising concern of security and the increasing focus on business processes and the componentization of services, such as service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Consulting and integrations rates are flat for partner-level and director-level resources in the United States, while Forrester sees lowerlevel managers, consultants, and analyst rates increasing from 12% to 50%.

High-end consulting - Business process re-engineering, human capital management, and financial performance consulting fall into this category, and executives in these areas often command a 50% premium rate (over $500).

IT consulting. IT consulting rates for executive-level consultants have stayed flat, while resource rates below the manager level have increased.The IT consulting rates for the lower resource level will continue to increase, with the focus on SOA (business analysts/architecture planning/design) and security consultants.

Application Development - offshore rates are creeping up because of the competitive nature of Indian labor moving to other opportunities and the demands of clients to keep skilled resources who are trained on missioncritical applications from leaving.

Implementation and integration. Systems integration rates are rising more slowly than consulting rates are.

Seems like some good news for IT Services firms.

Source: 1

Prashanth Rai