Survey of 1,000+ IT & Security Teams Shows More Tools = More Burnout & Higher Risk

Analysis of 1,011 IT and security professionals reveals the true price of fragmented tech stacks

IT teams aren't just managing technology, they're suffocating under it. Our survey of over 1,000 IT and security professionals reveals a stark reality: the more tools organizations deploy to solve problems, the more problems they create. Tool sprawl isn't just a budget issue. It's a crisis driving burnout, inefficiency, organizational dysfunction and leaving organizations exposed to security threats.

Who we heard from:

1,011 total responses from IT and security professionals
Company size breakdown: 23.5% from 1–100 employee companies, 36.9% from 101–500, 18.2% from 501–1,000, 14.8% from 1,001–5,000, and 6.7% from 5,000+
80.6% hands-on practitioners: 46.8% IT Admins, 33.8% IT Managers/Directors, 11% Security Engineers and Security Leaders.
Comprehensive tool coverage: 93% use device management, 82% malware protection, 81% identity systems, 43.4% use compliance automation

The top challenges facing IT & security teams reveal systemic issues:

Too many overlapping tools (49%)
Gaps or breakdowns between tools (46%)
Security risks due to poor integration (41%)
Siloed ownership or communication (38%)
Compliance and audits take too much time (38%)

The Burnout-Complexity Connection

The data reveals a direct, measurable correlation between the number of tools teams manage and their burnout levels:

Teams with 1–5 tools: 17% report high burnout (scores 4–5)
Teams with 16+ tools: 50% report high burnout
The average burnout score sits at 2.8/5, with nearly half (43.2%) reporting moderate impact, and 20.3% reporting significant to severe burnout from their stack

“We switched platforms last year. With our previous solution, there was major burnout amongst my team. Since making the move, that burnout is nearly gone and we’re seeing the change pay dividends.”

—IT Leader, mid-size enterprise

This isn’t about individual tools being “bad.” The problem is systemic. Tool inflation acts like a “complexity tax” - draining resources, efficiency, and morale regardless of what's in the stack.

What burnout means for organizations: It’s more than frustration. It’s a threat to team health, productivity, and retention. When IT & security professionals are bogged down by manual workflows, constant tool-switching, and excessive dashboard juggling, they don’t leave because they don’t like their job, they leave because the tools make their jobs feel meaningless.

The stakes are high:

Talent flight. Burnout leads to attrition - not just lost productivity, but lost institutional knowledge and increased hiring costs. Studies estimate that knowledge loss can cost organizations $30 billion annually.
Retention at risk. Many IT professionals consider leaving due to work-related stress - 77% report job stress, and 79% have “seriously considered leaving” - where poor tooling is often a root cause.

For lean teams, the consequences are amplified. High turnover means disruption, over-reliance on remaining staff, and reduced bandwidth to tackle strategic work. In other words: burnout today is lost capability tomorrow.

The Security Risk of Tool Sprawl

For IT admins, tool sprawl feels like wasted time. For security leaders, it looks like exposure.

The survey shows that 41% of respondents link poor integrations directly to security risks. Multiple disconnected tools create blind spots, inconsistent enforcement, and fragmented alerting — in short, more openings for attackers.

Respondents made this connection clear:

“Complexity of multiple systems, coupled with difficult or non-existent integrations.”

What does that risk look like in practice? Poor integration means:

Gaps in visibility across endpoints, apps, and networks
Delayed patching and response as alerts scatter across systems
Expanded attack surface with every additional tool and API connection
Inconsistent controls that make it easier for attackers to exploit misconfigurations

These aren’t hypothetical risks. Recent threat research shows attackers increasingly target integration seams — exploiting unpatched systems, abusing exposed APIs, and using phishing or stolen credentials to move laterally across poorly connected platforms. Whether it’s a mid-market IT team with lean staff or a global enterprise with siloed ownership, fragmentation raises the odds of a breach.

The Different Costs When it Comes to Mid-Market vs. Enterprise

Companies with 101-1,000 employees face the perfect storm of complexity. They've outgrown simple solutions but lack enterprise-level resources to manage the resulting chaos. Our survey showed:

Highest tool inflation: Mid-market companies average more tools per employee
Greatest integration pain: 63% prioritize better integration vs. 55% at enterprise level
Peak maintenance burden: Spend 50-75% of time on tool maintenance vs. strategic work

As one mid-market IT leader put it:

"Vendors either try to do too much and don't do anything well, or really focus on one thing and don't really integrate well with anything else, siloing it out on its own. Finding a good balance... is difficult."

Enterprise companies (5,000+ employees) face a different challenge. For them, the technical risks drop but siloed communication rises sharply, peaking at 48%. At scale, the hardest gaps to close aren’t between platforms, they’re between people.

One enterprise respondent said:

“Tooling fragmentation and overlapping capabilities often create redundant workflows, while inconsistent integrations between vendors occasionally disrupt efficiency.”

These aren't vendor-specific problems. They're architectural problems that persist regardless of which individual tools organizations choose.

“We just have a ton of vendors. Way too many.”

The Tool Hierarchy: Foundation vs. Maturity Indicators

Not all tools play the same role in the stack. Some are foundational, the table stakes every organization needs to manage devices and secure endpoints. Others are maturity indicators - specialized capabilities that tend to come later as organizations evolve their security posture. Looking at adoption rates makes this hierarchy clear.

Foundation Tools (80%+ adoption):

Device management: 93%
Malware protection: 82%
Identity and access management: 81%

Maturity Indicators (less than 60% adoption):

Vulnerability management: 60%
Compliance automation: 43%

This gap represents more than just adoption rates. It shows the difference between "table stakes" tools that every organization needs and specialized tools that indicate operational maturity. The 20+ percentage point gap suggests that many organizations are still building their foundational security stack before moving to advanced capabilities.

More tellingly, over 50% of organizations still rely on manual methods or spreadsheets for compliance management. This isn't just an efficiency problem, it's a security risk.

Spreadsheets can't enforce access controls, maintain audit trails, or provide real-time compliance visibility. They're notorious for errors (studies show 88% contain mistakes), create version control chaos, and leave gaps in documentation that turn routine audits into costly investigations.

The persistence of manual methods despite these risks reveals the fundamental problem: current point solutions aren't addressing the integration and workflow challenges that matter most. Organizations choose the risk of spreadsheets over the complexity of managing multiple disconnected compliance tools.

Integration and Automation Are The Biggest Demands

When asked to redesign their ideal tech stack, IT professionals revealed their true pain points:

Top 5 Priorities:

Better integration between tools (61%) - The overwhelming #1 demand
Better automation capabilities (48%)
Lower total cost (41%)
Unified dashboard/single pane of glass (33%)
Fewer vendors to manage (32%)

“Overall SaaS sprawl is a huge headache. In terms of unifying management of our tools, would love to see more native integrations.”

“Integrations are the most important”

“Automation and integration are our mantra”

“Tighter integrations would be more ideal vs. products trying to add more features that are redundant. We tend to procure best in class and breed, not based on breath of offerings. Obviously cost is a factor, but that is often trumped by value and effectiveness.”

Integration isn’t just a wish list item. The data shows teams that prioritize automation and integrations report lower-than-average burnout, proving that connected systems aren’t just efficient but healthier for teams.

The Role Divide: IT vs. Security Priorities

While both IT and Security teams prioritize better integration, their secondary concerns reveal natural role-based splits:

IT teams focus on automation and efficiency
Security teams focus on risk reduction and compliance

These different priorities are legitimate and necessary. IT teams deal with the daily operational burden of maintaining systems, while Security teams focus on protecting the organization from risks. Understanding these distinct concerns is crucial for any organization trying to align their technology decisions across both functions.

Time Allocation: The Maintenance Trap

The survey reveals a troubling pattern in how teams spend their precious time and it directly contradicts what organizations need most:

Time Allocation Breakdown

The Reality Check:

Only 26% of teams focus primarily on strategic work (75-100% of time)
34% are trapped spending equal time on maintenance and strategy (25-50% strategic)
28% spend most time on maintenance (50-75% maintenance work)
12% are completely consumed by tool upkeep (75-100% maintenance)

This creates a vicious cycle: fragmented stacks demand more maintenance, which steals the time needed to consolidate and automate which, in turn, drives more fragmentation.

Key Takeaways for IT Leaders

More tools = more burnout. Tool count directly correlates with exhaustion, attrition, and team instability.
Integration outweighs individual quality. Even the “best” tools fail if they can’t connect.
Mid-market faces the perfect storm. They need enterprise-grade integration without enterprise-level complexity.
Time is the real budget. Teams don’t want more dashboards. They want more bandwidth for strategy, innovation, and risk reduction.

The Bottom Line: Tool Sprawl Has Reached Its Breaking Point

Tool sprawl has moved beyond an efficiency issue—it’s now a systemic threat to both people and organizations. Our survey of more than 1,000 IT and security professionals makes the risks undeniable: the higher the tool count, the higher the burnout; the weaker the integrations, the wider the security gaps. This isn’t a matter of preference or productivity hacks. It’s a matter of retaining talent, protecting institutional knowledge, and safeguarding against attackers who exploit fragmentation.

For IT leaders, the message is clear: the era of “more tools” is over. The next decade will be defined by integrated, automated platforms that reduce the maintenance burden, free up time for strategy, and close the seams that attackers target. Companies that act now will not only cut costs, they’ll build healthier teams and stronger defenses. Companies that delay will continue paying the hidden complexity tax—through lost talent, wasted resources, and heightened exposure.

The choice is no longer between innovation and consolidation. It’s between burnout and resilience, between risk and readiness. Integration is the new mandate.

This analysis is based on survey responses from 1,011 IT and security professionals across organizations ranging from startups to large enterprises.