Research firm Gartner has found that the security software market for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) market will reach £1.6 billion by the end of this year.

As well as this, revenue will grow to £2.4 billion by 2011, the data indicates.

Analyst Ruggero Contu explained that factors such as consolidation within the security software industry and the increasing sophistication of organisations in terms of choosing products was leading to market maturity.

"Traditionally, the security software market has been dominated by best-of-needs vendors, but we are starting to see a gradual consolidation around fewer players," he said.

He added that the anti-virus sector was likely to remain the largest source of revenue in the EMEA region.

Meanwhile, Andrea Simmons of the British Computer Society (BCS) said that small firms have no excuse not to put the minimum IT security cover in place, because there is free anti-virus and firewall software available on the internet.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)