Small companies: 23 percent

CompTIA's report on the "State of the IT Skills Gap" notes that the business impact of a company's IT skills shortage is proportional to the size of the gap. In other words, the larger the IT skills gap, the bigger the impact it will have on a business.

Forty six percent of respondents believe technology's fast pace is the primary driver of IT skills shortages inside their organizations. Technology changes so fast that it's hard for IT professionals to keep up.

"Innovation occurs faster and on more fronts, product lifecycles are now measured in months instead of years and market competition has never been greater. Consequently, organizations and IT staff are put in the difficult position of having to decide where to invest their limited time," CompTIA notes in its "State of the IT Skills Gap" report. "A hedging approach whereby IT teams seek basic knowledge about a lot of technologies prevents organizations from becoming true experts in any one domain. Conversely, a focused approach exposes organizations to the risk of picking the wrong technologies and/or strategies."