With Gartner predicting that low code will account for 75% of new application development by 2026, making it the norm for the majority of application development in the enterprise, many organisations would be fair to ask if it’s living up to such great expectations.

Evoke Technologies, the IT consulting company, set out to discover if low code is delivering tangible results for those who have adopted it.

Of the 250 UK IT leaders who participated in the research, over three quarters (83%) agreed that low code is living up to its promises, with the majority giving glowing reviews to for its applications and collaboration improvements.

The two key advantages reported the most by leaders were the tech’s impact on collaboration between business and IT (79%) and the increased speed of application development (78%).

Other benefits of the development technology highlighted included lower costs (75%), higher speed of charges/updates (76%), and a reduced need for developer expertise (79%) were also highly significant for respondents.

Over half (58%) of respondents say they are already using their low code platforms to develop mission-critical applications, with nearly three quarters (72%) or organisations saying they will use it to build these applications within the foreseeable future.

AI’s Turbocharging Impact

The report further showed how respondents saw AI as a potential solution to some of the challenges of utilising low code in their organisations.

78% said they planned to use AI capabilities in their low code, with 73% saying that AI advancements will lower the barriers to use the development tools.

Businesses, however, also expected software and service providers to help with this adoption, with 77% expecting guidance on the use of generative AI in their developments.

Barriers to Low Code Adoption

IT leaders cited security (80%), scalability (78%) and platform licencing pricing and vendor lock in (71%) as the three major barriers to further low code adoption.

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But organisations also had a range of solutions to increase the use of low code in their organisation.

Solutions included hiring experienced developers with skills in the platform (44%), increasing reliance on providers to deliver low code initiatives (41%), and to educate non-developer staff about low code development opportunities and shorter development lifecycles (37%).

Adrian Bignall, who leads international sales for Evoke Technologies, said: “This research shows that companies will be looking to low code in the future and that choosing the right partner is a vital component on their low code adventure.”