No-code development has moved from a niche productivity practice toward a mainstream way to build applications and automate work. Survey findings show broad weekly use, strong expectations for expansion, and measurable reported gains in time, skills, and job outcomes. Forecasts also point to continued growth in the wider low-code market.
Table of contents
- Adoption and organizational growth
- How people learn and use no-code tools
- Why organizations invest
- Productivity and enterprise economics
- Developer experience and career outcomes
- Barriers, access, and representation
- Market forecasts and vendor landscape
Adoption and organizational growth
The adoption picture is closely tied to the pandemic period. Zapier’s data report, The Rise of No-Code, found that 82% of no-code users started using no-code tools during the pandemic. The same report found that 90% believed their company had been able to grow faster because of its no-code usage. These figures describe user-reported experience and perception, rather than an independently verified causal effect.
No-code is also being used outside formal workplace development. In the Zapier report, 76% of users said they use no-code tools for personal projects, while 85% planned to use no-code tools more in the next year. More than 8 in 10 users said they planned to increase usage during the coming calendar year. Taken together, these measures point to continued intent to expand, although the report does not establish how much additional usage actually occurred.
The boundary between IT and the rest of an organization is becoming less distinct. The Zapier report, citing Gartner, said nearly 60% of all custom applications are built outside the IT department. It also cited Gartner’s estimate that less than 25% of new applications were developed with no-code or low-code tools in 2020, compared with a projection that 70% of new applications developed by organizations would use these tools by 2025. The 2020 figure is historical, while the 2025 figure is a forecast and should not be read as a measured outcome.
One department stood out in the same Zapier findings: IT Operations accounted for 63% of departments that relied heavily on no-code or could not function without it. This suggests that no-code adoption is not limited to occasional experimentation; some teams describe it as important to routine operations.
How people learn and use no-code tools
No-code tools are often presented as accessible to nondevelopers, but the user base is not entirely nontechnical. Nearly 9 in 10 no-code users in the Zapier report had some type of prior technical knowledge, and more than 1 in 3 were technical professionals who chose to use no-code anyway. Accessibility therefore appears to coexist with substantial technical familiarity.
The learning routes reported by users were varied:
| Learning route | Share of no-code users |
|---|---|
| Free videos | 26% |
| Paid online course | 23% |
| Trial and error | 18% |
| Formal training at work | 31% |
| Informal help from a coworker | 6% |
Source: Zapier data report, The Rise of No-Code. The categories describe reported learning methods and are not presented as mutually exclusive.
Usage frequency was high. More than 8 in 10 no-code users used no-code tools at least once per week, nearly two-thirds used them multiple times per week, and 25% used them daily. This recurring usage helps explain why time savings and workflow automation appear prominently among the reported reasons for continued investment.
The benefits were not limited to productivity claims. Zapier found that 82% of users reported positive company recognition from no-code use, 70% reported additional compensation, and 60% saw the possibility of a promotion. These are reported associations and expectations; they do not show that no-code use directly caused a raise or promotion.
Why organizations invest
Users gave several reasons for continuing to invest in no-code tools. In the Zapier report, 83% ranked task-oriented time savings as a reason, 76% ranked automation, and 74% ranked flexibility. The findings place practical workflow improvement ahead of broad technology enthusiasm: users most often pointed to saving effort, automating repeatable work, and adapting processes.
The reported time savings were sometimes substantial. More than one-third of users said no-code saved them 10 to 20 hours of work individually. Another 10% said it saved at least an entire 40-hour workweek. These figures are self-reported and do not provide a standardized calculation across roles, projects, or measurement periods.
Training and upskilling were also associated with adoption. The Microsoft Power Platform Blog’s Low-Code Trend Report 2022 reported that 78% of users had taken advantage of relevant low-code or no-code training opportunities within their organization, compared with 41% of potential users. In the same report, 63% of users agreed that their organization invests in technical upskilling, compared with 36% of potential users.
Users reported benefits to their capabilities and working lives. The Microsoft report found that 82% of low- or no-code users said the technology helps improve development knowledge and technical skills. It also recorded a positive impact on work satisfaction and workload for 83% of respondents, and a positive impact on morale for 80%.
The perceived employment signal extended beyond current users. More than 80% of users and potential users said they would be more willing to work for a company that invests in technical upskilling. Meanwhile, 71% of potential users were more doubtful of their future with a company that does not invest in technical skills. The Microsoft survey sampled 322 users, 300 potential users, 150 business decision makers hiring for low-code or no-code skills, and 150 business decision makers already using low-code or no-code platforms.
Productivity and enterprise economics
The Forrester Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Power Apps study provides a separate enterprise case. It reported that 89% of developers spent at least some development time in the previous 12 months on a low-code platform, while 79% used low-code, no-code, or digital process automation solutions.
The study modeled a composite Power Apps customer with 30,000 employees and $10 billion in annual revenue. In that modeled organization, Power Apps delivered a reported 206% return on investment over three years and a $31.0 million net present value. The organization realized $46.1 million in benefits against $15.1 million in costs over the same period, with payback in under six months.
The reported benefits and costs were broken down as follows:
| Three-year item in the Forrester study | Amount or result |
|---|---|
| End-user efficiencies | $31.3 million |
| Professional developer efficiencies | $14.7 million |
| Licensing costs | $11.3 million |
| Implementation and training costs | $1.9 million |
| Ongoing management costs | $1.9 million |
| Net present value | $31.0 million |
| Return on investment | 206% |
The study also reported 250 hours of annual time savings for end users in high-impact use cases, equivalent to up to 12% of their time. App development time was reduced by 50%, and professional developer app development time was also reduced by 50%. These results apply to the study’s composite scenario and should not be generalized as a universal result for every no-code implementation.
Developer experience and career outcomes
The OutSystems Developer Engagement Report compared low-code and traditional developers on several workplace measures. Low-code developers reported 59% satisfaction with team productivity and 57% satisfaction with the quality of the tools available to them. Their reported ability to stick to a typical 40-hour work week was 71%, compared with 44% among traditional developers.
Compensation satisfaction also differed in the report. Sixty-three percent of low-code developers said they were happy with their salary and benefits, compared with 40% of traditional developers. Low-code developers had an average of 3.5 job promotions at their current company, compared with 2.0 for traditional developers. These comparisons are descriptive; the report does not establish whether low-code work caused the differences.
The same report included broader job-attitude measures from 860 global developers, according to OutSystems New Study Reveals Developer Talent Trends. Globally, 64% said they love their jobs, 46% were very satisfied with day-to-day elements of their jobs, and 48% said they would definitely be with their current company a year later. Looking two years out, that share fell to 29%.
Work-life balance remained a concern: 50% of respondents strongly agreed that they needed a better work-life balance. Thirty-one percent of global respondents were seriously considering changing companies at the time of the study, while 42% strongly agreed that there were many opportunities to easily get a better position.
The US-specific results were lower on some retention measures. Thirty-eight percent of US developers said they would definitely be with their current company in one year, and 18% said the same for two years. Thirty percent strongly agreed that they needed better work-life balance, 33% were seriously considering changing companies, and 25% strongly agreed that many opportunities to get a better position were available.
Barriers, access, and representation
No-code adoption still involves operational and learning challenges. Zapier found that 36% of users cited not knowing what to do when something goes wrong as a top challenge. Another 34% cited unexpected errors that impact others, and 32% cited a lack of examples to follow or model after. These findings indicate that removing syntax and traditional coding requirements does not remove the need for troubleshooting guidance, reliable patterns, and governance.
Awareness was a major adoption barrier in Microsoft’s Low-Code Trend Report 2022. Seventy-one percent of business decision makers pointed to a lack of awareness of use cases, while 76% of users pointed to the same barrier. The result suggests that organizations may need to demonstrate practical applications, not only provide access to a platform.
The report also included measures about gender and access to technology. Fewer than 20% of cloud computing professionals were women. Women were four times more likely than men to report restrictions in purchasing or testing new technology for career growth. These figures concern cloud computing and workplace technology access, so they should not be treated as a direct demographic profile of all no-code users.
Market forecasts and vendor landscape
Industry forecasts point to expansion across the broader low-code category. Gartner’s Risk and Opportunity Index: Low-Code Application Platforms forecast the low-code application platform market at $16.5 billion by 2027 and projected a 16.3% compound annual growth rate from 2022 to 2027.
Gartner’s Forecast Analysis: Low-Code Development Technologies, Worldwide projected the low-code development technologies market at $58.2 billion by 2029, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 14.1% over the forecast period to 2029. These are forecasts, not measured market totals, and the two estimates refer to differently named market scopes.
The competitive field has also been tracked by analyst firms. Forrester reported that it was tracking more than 100 low-code vendors in 2022. Its The Low-Code Platforms For Professional Developers Landscape, Q4 2024 covered 28 vendors. The different counts reflect different research scopes and dates, so they are not a direct measure of vendors entering or leaving the market.
For readers evaluating no-code development in media and streaming organizations, the data points to a practical pattern: recurring use, workflow automation, internal training, and clear examples matter alongside the platform itself. Reported outcomes range from individual time savings to modeled enterprise returns, while the forecasts describe a market expected to keep expanding.