IT contractors with security expertise could benefit from a trend towards high levels of protection for enterprise PC data, an analyst has suggested.

Research by IDC has found half of all firms have used PC backup software or services, with a number of issues being presented by an adoption of centralised PC backups.

Laura DuBois, program director for storage software, suggested that PC data is becoming increasingly important from a security perspective.

She said: "With IT executives struggling to reduce the cost of PC management, desktop virtualisation is certainly an enabling technology that is likely to fuel an even greater focus on data and system level protection for PCs."

IDC also found that larger firms are more likely to have rolled out this approach, while more companies are deploying portable PC clients driving the need for PC backup.

The company recently predicted that business analytics software-as-a-service will be another major growth area, which could create new opportunities for IT contractors.