Low-code development has moved from an experimental productivity tool toward a strategic capability. KPMG found that 81% of surveyed companies consider it strategically important, while Microsoft and Forrester research documents adoption, efficiency gains, training effects, and measurable business cases. The figures below identify the survey populations, regions, dates, and forecasts where those details are supplied.
Contents
- Strategic importance and adoption
- Governance, security, and integration
- Skills, training, and workforce effects
- Productivity, cost, and business value
- Enterprise examples
- AI and the next stage of low-code
Strategic importance and adoption
KPMG’s low-code adoption report, based on a survey sample of 2,000 companies, shows broad strategic interest:
- 81% of surveyed companies consider low-code development strategically important.
- 80% say it is critical for accelerating development.
- 79% say it matters for operational flexibility.
- 79% say it is important for strategic competitiveness.
- 77% say it is important for faster development.
Adoption is not uniform across regions. KPMG reports that 34% of companies in Africa already use low-code as a central part of their development strategy, compared with 32% in ASPAC. The same report says 47% of U.S. companies have company-wide low-code application guidelines, the lowest of the measured regions.
The broader developer picture also shows an established, though changing, market. A Microsoft PowerApps and Forrester survey summary reported that 23% of global developers used low-code platforms in 2018, while 22% planned to use them within a year. In the Forrester TEI of Microsoft Power Apps, 89% of developers spent at least some development time on a low-code platform during the preceding 12 months, and 79% used low-code, no-code, or digital process automation solutions.
Forrester valued the low-code market at $13.2 billion in 2023 and reported average market growth of 21% per year since 2019. These are market-level figures, whereas the survey percentages describe respondent answers; they should not be treated as interchangeable measures of adoption.
Governance, security, and integration
Interest does not remove the need for controls. In KPMG’s low-code adoption report, 55% of companies have company-wide guidelines specifying which applications are developed with low-code. Another 47% say they have, or plan to establish, low-code guidelines and defined governance.
Security is the most prominent reported obstacle: 42% of companies see security risks as the biggest challenge in low-code development. KPMG also reports that 90% of managers underscore the importance of security, and 90% underscore the importance of comprehensive developer tools and features. Together, those figures show that security is both a concern and a design requirement.
Integration and operating-model issues appear repeatedly in the same research. The reported shares are:
- 41% cite difficulties integrating low-code into the existing landscape.
- 39% say integrating low-code into existing IT infrastructure and processes is challenging.
- 39% cite too much complexity to maintain or implement low-code solutions.
- 39% cite lack of transparency on low-code platforms.
- 39% cite lack of management acceptance.
- 39% cite lack of a business case.
- 38% cite the risk of shadow IT.
- 38% cite lower reliability than manual programming.
- 38% cite data-governance challenges.
- 36% cite difficulty in training and upskilling.
Customization is a notable regional distinction. KPMG reports that 43% of European companies view a lack of customization options as a challenge, compared with 32% of U.S. companies. Across companies overall, 33% cite insufficient customization. In addition, 35% say there is no need because existing custom solutions already meet their needs.
Skills, training, and workforce effects
Low-code can broaden participation in application delivery, but skills remain a material constraint. KPMG reports that 41% of companies cite employee skills and competencies outside IT as a challenge, while 40% cite insufficient IT knowledge among staff. Separately, 40% cite a lack of skills in IT and 40% cite a lack of skills among employees outside IT. Lack of employee buy-in is reported by 41%.
Regional results vary considerably. Digital skills are a challenge for 51% of ASPAC companies, 40% of European companies, and 33% of African companies. Maintenance and implementation complexity is cited by 50% of ASPAC business leaders and 39% of European business leaders.
Training data from Microsoft’s Low-Code Trend Report 2022 connects organizational investment with user participation:
| Workforce measure | Reported result |
|---|---|
| Low-code users taking relevant organizational training | 78% |
| Potential users taking relevant organizational training | 41% |
| Users agreeing their organization invests in technical upskilling | 63% |
| Potential users agreeing their organization invests in technical upskilling | 36% |
| Users reporting improved development knowledge and technical skills | 82% |
| Users reporting a positive effect on work satisfaction and workload | 83% |
| Users reporting a positive effect on morale | 80% |
More than 80% of users and potential users say they would be more willing to work for a company that invests in technical upskilling. Also, 71% of potential users are more doubtful about their future with a company that does not invest in technical skills. The same Microsoft report says fewer than 20% of cloud-computing professionals are women, and women are four times more likely than men to report restrictions on purchasing or testing new technology for career growth.
Awareness is another adoption barrier. Microsoft reports that 71% of business decision-makers and 76% of users see lack of awareness of Microsoft Power Platform or similar programs as a barrier.
Productivity, cost, and business value
Microsoft’s Low-Code Signals 2023 survey reports that 89% of surveyed CIOs and IT professionals say low-code is effective for increasing efficiency. The same source reports that 87% say it is very useful for modernizing legacy applications, 87% say it helps reduce costs, and 86% say it helps organizations generate more accurate insights from data. In addition, 89% say it is effective for generating data-driven insights for customers and internal stakeholders; a separate supplied figure from the same source reports 88% for that measure.
The staffing rationale is also visible: 45% of IT professionals say they first adopted low-code to make up for staff shortages. Meanwhile, 87% say increased AI and automation embedded in low-code platforms would help them use the full capability set more effectively. Microsoft reports a 24% cost reduction associated with increased developer efficiency, increased DevOps efficiency, and reduced third-party spending.
Forrester’s TEI of Microsoft Power Apps presents a modeled three-year business case for a composite organization, rather than a universal result for every company:
- Professional developer efficiency time savings are valued at $14.7 million.
- End-user efficiency time savings are valued at $31.3 million.
- Total benefits are $46.1 million.
- Total costs are $15.1 million.
- Net present value is $31.0 million.
- Reported ROI is 206%.
- Licensing costs are $11.3 million.
- Implementation and training costs are $1.9 million.
- Ongoing management costs are $1.9 million.
The composite organization’s app development time was reduced by 50%. In high-impact use cases, end users can save 250 hours per year, or up to 12% of their time. These figures are modeled business-case estimates, not a forecast for every implementation.
Enterprise examples
Named examples illustrate how low-code outcomes can differ by workflow. Microsoft’s Low-Code Signals 2023 reports that PwC built its Cyber Technology Rationalizer solution in six weeks using low-code. PwC achieved 85% cost savings and 30% time savings from that implementation.
EY’s PowerPost app reduced document-processing lead time by 95%. Microsoft reports that the app is forecast to reduce existing costs by 30% and eliminated email and Excel requirements by 100%. The 30% figure is explicitly a forecast, while the reported elimination figure describes the application’s stated result.
The same Microsoft source gives an operating scale for ÖBB: it serves 477 million passengers annually across Europe. That passenger figure provides context for the organization’s scale, but it is not itself a low-code productivity measure.
Power Apps also has broad reported distribution. Microsoft’s Power Apps leader blog says 92% of Fortune 500 organizations use Power Apps each month. It also reports that Power Apps reaches more than 250 million users natively in Teams and Office 365 and includes built-in connectors to more than 500 services. Those are platform-reach and capability figures, not proof that every user builds applications.
AI and the next stage of low-code
KPMG’s later AI-and-low-code follow-up survey included 2,170 companies. Its results point toward an AI-infused application-building model:
- 59% say AI brings efficiency, speed, and agility to low-code app building.
- 78% are actively developing or planning low-code apps infused with AI in the next 12 months.
- 28% extensively leverage low-code for complex enterprise applications with embedded AI.
The 12-month figure is a forward-looking plan reported by surveyed companies, not a completed-adoption rate. The 28% figure describes extensive use for complex enterprise applications, while the 78% figure includes organizations that are still planning such applications.
Finally, local-government results in the OutSystems State of Application Development, 2018/19 report show an association between low-code use and delivery maturity. Low-code users are less than half as likely to report app delivery times of 12 months or more. They are also 15% more likely to describe agile maturity as level 3 or higher and 10% more likely to describe DevOps maturity as level 3 or higher. These findings describe reported relationships in that study period and geography; they do not establish that low-code alone caused the differences.