Research by software delivery platform Harness suggests that UK businesses are inadvertently wasting over £10.4bn per year as a result of lack of software productivity, mainly due to developers having to manually carry out routine operations that could be automated or aided by AI.
These administration tasks include unnecessary scripting, toolchain maintenance, and responding to security issues occurring across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
This follows research released earlier this year by Software that suggested that developers are spending less than an hour per day (52 minutes per day) on coding, as a result of being bogged down in manual tasks. This has resulted in an rise in poor mental health of employees, as well as downturn in digital transformation progress.
Nick Durkin, Field CTO at Harness, adds: “We are facing a developer experience crisis. Repetitive tasks such as the maintenance of unnecessary scripts, repetitive manual testing and waiting times for builds to complete, are keeping organisations’ best developers from the critical work of coding.
“This toil is driving huge inefficiencies across the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), minimising the impact of developer talent and stalling critical digital transformation projects. It could even lead to burnout, or push an organisation’s most skilled resources to seek more engaging roles with another employer.
“Organisations must act now to improve the developer experience, empowering them to do what they do best; turn ideas from concept to reality.”