IT departments at UK companies are confident of meeting their objectives despite the current economic circumstances, according to new research from Cisco.

The networking giant surveyed 500 IT departments across the UK and Ireland in October to ascertain the gaps between IT leaders' aspirations and the likelihood of achieving their objectives.

Some 68 per cent of organisations are confident of meeting their goals in 2009, although large "reality gaps" exist in areas such as network performance and network security.

Although 56 per cent of respondents said that network security is a high priority, only 30 per cent believe that achieving security objectives will be straightforward.

And while 52 per cent indicated that network performance is a high priority, just 27 per cent said that achieving this goal would be straightforward.

"There are high levels of confidence in IT departments about achieving their objectives," said Billy Hamilton-Stent, director at research consultancy Loudhouse, which conducted the survey.

"But the watchword for IT leaders is to be aware where your biggest challenges reside, because delivering these objectives will become more important. But achieving them is not going to get any easier over the next 12 months."