CFOs are slowing headcount growth, survey says

The obvious story is the obvious story: CFOs are ready and eager to keep spending on tech.

That’s one takeaway—the obvious one—from Gartner’s latest budget benchmarks report, released in early February. It’s based on a survey of over 300 CFOs and finance leaders conducted in October 2025.

But look just past the obvious story, and there’s a thread other CFOs should pay attention to in 2026: HR spending is facing a noticeable pullback.

Just 29% of CFOs plan to increase HR spending in 2026, while 22% expect to cut HR budgets. That reduces “average budget growth from 2.4% in 2025 to 0.7% in 2026 due to reduced hiring and AI efficiency gains,” the report noted.

Meanwhile, “after years of compensation-led budget growth,” pay increases slowed for three cycles in a row, “dropping from 6.1% in 2024 to 5.4% in 2025, and the moderation will deepen to 4.5% in 2026,” according to the report.

These budget shifts are closer to the “real story,” which, according to Nauman Abbasi, VP analyst in Gartner’s finance practice, is CFOs’ “collapsing headcount growth expectations.”

Already low in 2025 at 6%, now only 2% of CFOs anticipate headcount growth in 2026, Abbasi said. “Just 21% of CFOs [are] planning staff increases of 4% to 9%, down from 31% last year,” he continued.

“This marks a structural pivot from labor expansion to optimization driven by automation and AI that deliver productivity gains without proportional increases in headcount,” Abbasi said.

In December, the CFO Survey by Duke University and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta showed many more finance executives anticipating increases in headcount.

Of the 548 US finance executives surveyed in November and December 2025, 15% of them said their company planned to reduce the number of employees in 2026, and 26% planned to keep employment flat. But the majority (59%) projected they’d be increasing their workforce in 2026.