UK Businesses Set to Accelerate Software Development Faster Than European Rivals, Study Finds

  • New Mendix survey shows that British businesses plan to develop software at a faster rate than those on the continent
  • The pandemic has led to faster digital disruption than expected, but UK businesses are excited about the opportunity this presents
  • Low-code is already helping UK businesses deal with digital disruption and will drive software development moving forward

LONDON – September 30, 2021 – Mendix, a Siemens business and global leader in low-code application development for the enterprise, today announced the results of a new survey that shows British businesses are set to accelerate their software development at a pace faster than their European rivals. The survey findings are presented in the ‘The State of Low-Code 2021: A Look Back, The Light Ahead’ report, now available for download on Mendix’s website.

UK businesses embrace pandemic’s digital disruption

The study, which questioned 2,000 IT decision makers and software developers globally, including 281 based in the UK, found that 79% of UK businesses are planning to accelerate software development in the next two years. This is higher than the average across Europe (74%) and much higher than German businesses (69%), as UK businesses look to get an advantage in a post-Brexit world.

The pandemic has increased the demand for digitalisation to levels never seen before. The research finds that over half of UK businesses (51%) believe that the last two years has led to more digital disruption than expected, compared with just 6% that have seen less disruption than expected.

Many UK businesses are embracing this disruption as an opportunity. Nearly half (49%) of respondents are excited about the digital acceleration and software development demand, whilst only 23% are worried and 20% feel overwhelmed.

Low-code drives digital transformation

To deal with this digital disruption and increased need for software development, many UK businesses are turning to low-code platforms. The UK leads the way in Europe for low-code adoption, which has entered the mainstream globally, with 80% of businesses already using low-code. This is higher than the European average of 74% and much further ahead of Germany, where 69% of businesses are using low-code technology.

UK organisations are using low-code to build applications that meet a number of business needs, with the simple drag-and-drop solution enabling faster development and deployment. The most common types of applications built using low-code by UK businesses are IOT applications (35%), productivity applications (33%) and applications to automate existing processes (31%).

The pandemic has also been a big driver for low-code adoption within UK organisations. 85% of businesses have seen greater adoption of low-code as a result of COVID-19. On top of this, 23% of UK businesses have used low-code to build a pandemic-related application.

Nick Ford, VP of product and solutions marketing for Mendix, explains: “There is no doubt that the pandemic has led to mass digital disruption for UK businesses. With operations forced online, many organisations had to drive digital transformation at a faster rate than ever before. It is really positive to see that UK companies are embracing this change and looking to use it as an opportunity.”

He adds: “Despite this, there still remains a talent crunch in the UK that isn’t going away anytime soon. This is why so many UK businesses are adopting low-code, instead of trying to hire expensive developers that are in short supply. Low-code puts software development in the hands of citizen developers who already exist within business, providing them with the tools they need to build applications and solve business problems. Mendix has been pioneering this approach for years; we are very excited to see how far low-code developers take our platform to create solutions to problems that would otherwise have defied the imagination.”

Methodology

On behalf of Mendix, independent market research firm Reputation Leaders surveyed a total of 2,025 IT professionals via a ten-minute online survey between May 10 and June 21, 2021. Survey participants included a total of 1,209 IT executives and 816 software developers. Of the respondents, 1,012 were from the U.S., 503 from Europe and 510 from China. 156 respondents were from Germany. Of these, 89 are software developers and 67 are IT decision makers. All IT professionals were employed in SMEs/companies with 50 or more employees. IT executives were identified as either CIO, CTO, or Chief Data Officer/Head of Data/Head of Data Management, and thus as individuals who play an important role in decision making regarding technologies and IT resources. The margin of error for the overall 2,025 sample is 2.2 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. In the U.S., the margin of error is +/-3.1 percent and in Europe and China it is +/-4.4 percent.

    About Mendix

    Mendix, a Siemens business, is the only low-code platform designed to address the full complexity of enterprise software development challenges. Deploying point solutions to departmental problems solves things at a micro level—but if you want to make a significant impact on your business, you need to go bigger and build powerful portfolios that move the needle sustainably and strategically.

    With Mendix, enterprises can take on more complex, transformational initiatives by engaging everyone in capturing requirements, forming ideas, and embedding value assessment throughout the lifecycle of the software portfolio.

    Focus on the right problems while relying on governance and control to avoid unnecessary risk. Mobilize your organization. Build the change readiness muscle. And when the next big idea drops, turn it into an outcome quicker.

    More than 4,000 organizations in 46 countries use the Mendix low-code platform. An active community of over 300,000 developers has created over 950,000 applications – and counting.