Outsourcing hubs, India and China, have one more competitor up their sleeves — the U.S. It is the third most popular destination for offshore outsourcing among British CIOs, according to a survey conducted by British recruitment and offshore firm, Harvey Nash. American firms ranked No. 2 in eight areas (program management, business analysis, software development, systems architecture and testing, security skills, IT strategy and data centers).

Also, for U.K. firms offshoring continues to grow with 93 percent of respondents expecting to maintain or grow their current offshoring activity in 2008 to 2009. U.K. technology leaders prefer to keep services linked to systems, security and strategy either onshore or in the U.S., because of a sophisticated legal system to rely on.