Low-code development technologies experiencing significant uptake

The worldwide market for low-code development technologies is projected to total $26.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 19.6% from 2022, according to the latest forecast from Gartner.

According to the analysts, a rise in business technologists and a growing number of enterprise-wide hyper automation and composable business initiatives will be the key drivers accelerating the adoption of low-code technologies through 2026.

Varsha Mehta, Senior Market Research Specialist at Gartner, says, "Organisations are increasingly turning to low-code development technologies to fulfil growing demands for speed application delivery and highly customised automation workflows."

Mehta continues, "Equipping both professional IT developers and non-IT personas - business technologists - with diverse low-code tools enables organisations to reach the level of digital competency and speed of delivery required for the modern agile environment."

Low-code application platforms (LCAPs) are projected to be the largest component of the low-code development technology market, growing 25% to reach nearly $10 billion in 2023. While LCAP is the largest market segment, citizen automation development platform (CADP) is projected to grow at the fastest pace, with a 30.2% growth forecast for 2023, Gartner states.

Typical use cases of CADP include automating workflows, building web-based forms, bridging data and content across multiple software-as-a-service applications and creating reports and data visualisations.

Jason Wong, Distinguished VP Analyst, at Gartner, says, "The high cost of tech talent and a growing hybrid or borderless workforce will contribute to low-code technology adoption."

He continues, "Empowered by the intuitive, flexible and increasingly-powerful features of low-code development tools, business technologists and citizen technologist personas are developing lightweight solutions to meet business unit needs for enhanced productivity, efficiency and agility - often as fusion teams."

Gartner predicts that by 2026, developers outside formal IT departments will account for at least 80% of the user base for low-code development tools, up from 60% in 2021.

The analysts also find that hyper automation and composability will drive low-code adoption.

Gartner states, interest in hyper automation continues to grow due to rising operational optimisation demands, a widening skills gap and increasing economic pressures.

The analysts forecast that the spending on hyper automation-enabling software technologies will reach $720 billion in 2023. A portion of this spending will be directed at low-code development technologies including LCAP, iPaaS, RPA, CADP and MXDP, to support process automation, integration, decision analytics and intelligence use cases.

Investments in low-code technologies that support innovation and composable integration will also grow as organisations embrace the composable enterprise. Composable enterprises require better reuse of existing packaged business capabilities (PBCs) for agile application development and to create custom user experience for new workflows and processes.

Wong says, "Low-code development technologies are supporting the composable enterprise by enabling the creation of more agile and resilient software solutions. These technologies can be used to compose and recompose modular components and PBCs, to create adaptive custom applications for changing business needs."