The trap you’re falling into is that the CEO class doesn’t like to legitimize paying for work they don’t consider important. They’ll funnel millions to management consultants who range from useless to net-negative because that money goes to people similar to them, but they often don’t respect “menial” work for the same reason and view it as a cost to be minimized as ruthlessly as possible.

I mention this because it’s not uncommon for IT people to see our current market demand and conclude that we’re in the first camp when most organizations’ senior management think the opposite.