Only 6% of enterprises have all the mobile developer talent they need

Enterprises are losing money because they cannot find talented mobile app developers to clear the backlog of work required to keep their businesses up to date, according to a new study.

The survey revealed that 85% of companies have a mobile backlog of between one and 20 applications, with a majority (50%) having a backlog of between 10 and 20 apps. 

With the average application taking anywhere between three and 12 months to get out the door, this slow approach to app development is increasingly damaging revenue opportunities in the enterprise, the study from application delivery platform provider, OutSystems, carried out by independent research company, Opinion Matters, showed. 

The study polled US and UK enterprises and found that organisations are currently struggling with a significant mobile backlog and unable to cope with business demands. The primary goal of these new mobile app initiatives is either to generate revenue (64%) or to improve the mobile experience of existing apps (58%).

Today, the industry is already dealing with a considerable skills shortage. Altogether, 63% of respondents said they had somewhere between 11% and 25% open vacancies for developers as a percentage of current team size, and over one quarter (29%) had as high as between 26% and 50% open vacancies. 

With only 6% of respondents clearly stating that they have all the mobile app development skills they need, it is clear that this issue is only going to get more challenging as demand for these projects continues to grow, the study showed.

Enterprises need to find a fast and efficient way to deliver enterprise mobile and web apps, otherwise they will very quickly lose ground, said Paulo Rosado, CEO of OutSystems: “It’s clear that organisations are struggling to deal with a deluge of mobile app requests, multiple platforms to support, hundreds of change requests, and complex backend integrations. To make matters worse, as demand for mobile app developers grows, companies will continue to have a challenge hiring developers. Not only will they be increasingly hard to find, they will also be increasingly expensive.” 

In the last 12 months, just over half (51%) of respondents to the survey have undertaken between one and five mobile app projects and 44% have undertaken between six and 10. This means that over a 12 month period 95% of respondents have undertaken somewhere between one and 10 mobile app projects. Also, 85% of companies surveyed noted that they have a mobile backlog of between one and 20 applications, with half (50%) having a backlog of between 10 and 20 apps.

When asked about the goal of new mobile app initiatives the top three cited were to generate revenue (64%), to improve the mobile experience of existing apps (58%), and to improve customer experience (52%), while 99% of respondents recognise the importance of incorporating mobility into current and future applications in their organisations. 

The top two challenges when building mobile apps are budget (53%) and time (50%). Other challenges ranged from a gap in skills needed to undertake mobile (36%), to both business (25%) and users (33%) having unrealistic expectations (total 58%), to not enough developers with the right level of skills (19%), to the development environment not currently being right for mobile (17%). Only 4% of those surveyed said that they have no challenges when building mobile apps which means that 96% are grappling with issues of one nature or another.

Over half of the respondents surveyed (51%) stated that it was taking them on average between three and six months to build and deliver a complete mobile application. Amazingly, 6% of the survey respondents advised that it was sometimes taking up to one year to build and deliver mobile applications.

Nearly three quarters of the respondents reported to have between six and 15 developers working on their mobile app initiatives, and a further 21% are using somewhere between 16 and 30.

When asked about their preferred type of mobile app development environment, one third voted for hybrid (33%), while 29% preferred native and 22% opted for HTML5/responsive design. 16% stated that this would vary on a case by case basis.

While 63% of the respondents had between 11% and 25% open vacancies for developers as a percentage of their current team size. 29% had between 26% and 50% open vacancies. A very small percentage (6%) advised that they have no open vacancies due to a shortage of developer skills. When asked if they have any open mobile application developer vacancies, the top three skills respondents had challenges hiring for were Java (31%), JavaScript (19%) and .NET (17%).

Opinion Matters surveyed 228 application development directors and managers in the US and UK during August and September 2014. The split between UK and US respondents was about equal, with around 50% from each territory (111 UK versus 117 US). Results were also segmented by industry sector, role and company size.