Top Tech Stats: Developer’s ROI on education, AI at work and digital marketing
Welcome to your roundup of some of the past week’s most interesting surveys, statistics and reports relevant to those involved in the UK tech industry.
This week, we have statistics relating developer’s education return on investment, AI at work and digital marketing expenditure.
Developer’s ROI on university degrees
Stack Overflow released its Q3 Developer Ecosystem report, which sheds new light on emerging trends in developer education, earlier this week.
Based on its annual survey of more than 4,700 developers in the UK and Ireland, coders who gain a Bacherlor’s degree only earn £3,000 more per year than those who don’t hold one.
The data suggest that a £9,000 a year undergraduate education may not have the return on investment many students expect.
Stack Overflow’s data also points to shifting opinions on traditional education, with 37% of professional developers in the UK and Ireland saying their formal education was “not very” or “not at all important” to their career success.
Additionally, some 48% of developers with less than four years of professional experience currently hold a Computer Science-related undergraduate degree.
However, 49% of developers with the same level of experience now report that they have participated in an online course related to their work, highlighting the rapidly changing landscape of developer education in the UK and Ireland.
Digital marketing expenditure
Research by Greenlight has revealed that on top of marketers being unsure whether or not they are targeting the right audience, almost a quarter (23%) aren’t even tracking campaign spend whatsoever.
According to the findings, some 36% don’t have confidence in their campaign targeting, and almost one in five (18%) don’t think their campaigns are reaching their desired audience at all.
One in ten (10%) are not sure which channels are the most valuable for their campaigns. In fact, even those that do know are not dedicating their budgets to the right channel, with 17% still yet to commit their budgets accordingly.
AI and jobs
One in three employees say artificial intelligence (AI) will increase the number of jobs available in the future, with millennials especially positive, according to CCS Insight’s latest employee enterprise survey.
More than half of employees expect artificial intelligence to affect their jobs within three years, with 70% feeling it will do so within the next decade. The automation of mundane work tasks, the increasing performance of machinery and the use of assistive AI features in productivity and collaboration applications were cited by respondents as the top uses and benefits of the technology in the future.
The automation of mundane work tasks, the increasing performance of machinery and the use of assistive AI features in productivity and collaboration applications were cited by respondents as the top uses and benefits of the technology in the future.
CCS Insight‘s vice president of enterprise research, Nick McQuire, said: “Despite many reports painting a bleak outlook for the impact of AI on the job market in recent months, our survey reveals rather positive attitudes to the technology, both as a job creator and an enabler of work. Employees are drowning in a sea of data and digital technology. Rather than destroying jobs, AI is seen as a tool that could help us work smarter and better in the future.”
“Employees are drowning in a sea of data and digital technology. Rather than destroying jobs, AI is seen as a tool that could help us work smarter and better in the future.”