Cloud and automation propel future of development environments

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Cloud and automation propel future of development environments

A report jointly published by Coder and SlashData has shed light on the current practices and future directions of development environments.

With organisations increasingly moving towards standardisation, the ‘State of Development Environments 2025’ report provides insights into the industry’s trajectory, its challenges, and its potential opportunities for growth.

Standardisation of development environments gains traction

One of the standout findings is the growing commitment to standardisation. The adoption of standardised development environments is on the rise, with 78% of organisations planning to implement such environments in the coming year.

The report also highlights the methods popular among organisations in this journey, including reliance on internal platform or DevOps teams, building in-house custom solutions, outsourcing to third parties, and opting for commercial cloud development solutions.  

While the timeline of these rollouts varies, those planning to act rapidly (within three months) are likely to already have the infrastructure or partnerships in place to accelerate implementation.

Organisations with a slightly longer timeframe (of three to six months) indicate early preparation phases, whereas those looking beyond six months often face foundational challenges requiring phased approaches to overcome.

This transition is particularly evident in the increasing use of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Despite being termed a “legacy technology” in the report, VDIs maintain their appeal among those looking to centralise and standardise across distributed teams.

However, as plans mature, VDI tends to lose momentum, with commercial cloud-hosted solutions becoming the preferred choice. Unsurprisingly, organisations with a high density of developers already favour commercial cloud environments for their scalability and collaboration support.  

Tug-of-war between developers and administrators  

While organisations pursue standardisation efforts, a divergence in perspectives between administrators and developers emerges as a consistent theme.

Administrators generally rate development environments more positively – particularly in governance, tool access, and configurations – compared to developers. This divide points to either misaligned priorities or gaps in communication and education.  

For developers, the autonomy to customise their environments remains critical, but this flexibility introduces risks, such as inconsistent configurations and security vulnerabilities. 

“Administrators report significantly greater flexibility (52% vs 36% for developers). This discrepancy may reflect leniency in organisational rules for administrators and their teams, while end-user developers experience stricter enforcement and more limited options,” the report’s authors explain.  

Developers are further frustrated by lengthy setup times. Only 7% of organisations can create environments in under an hour, with 21% reporting setup times longer than two days. Despite this glaring inefficiency, only 14% of respondents consider reducing setup times a priority.

The disconnect between standardisation and flexibility mirrors ongoing debates within software engineering teams on balancing centralised control and individual freedom.  

Implementation challenges  

The report highlights several barriers organisations face on their journey to standardisation. Chief among these are approval bottlenecks—particularly in organisations involving multiple stakeholders in decision-making. Delayed or overly complex approval processes hinder progress, despite being perceived as crucial for governance and oversight.  

In terms of tooling, developers cite restricted access to needed tools and templates as a major obstacle. This sentiment often coincides with low operational maturity: highly standardised organisations tended to provide better access and faster workflows.

Another bottleneck concerns IT and management approvals for changes or new development tools, with 24% of administrators and 21% of developers experiencing delays due to these processes.

A cautionary point made in the report is that security and compliance requirements remain a persistent challenge for administrators tasked with provisioning environments.

The findings show that security challenges are often more pronounced in industries with stricter regulatory frameworks, like government and defence, which unsurprisingly report having the “most locked-down environments.”

Sector insights and maturity levels  

The maturity of development environments differs markedly between industry verticals, with some embracing standardisation far more than others.

The education and government/defence sectors feature the highest operational standardisation maturity. These sectors value compliance and consistency, resulting in more centralised frameworks for environment configurations.  

Conversely, retail organisations – despite excelling in process maturity like automated setups – often report dissatisfaction with their environments.

For Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, flexibility is prioritised, sometimes at the expense of operational standardisation. This creates a relatively lax oversight culture where developers are given significant control but at the potential cost of organisational risks such as poor governance and disjointed workflows.

High-maturity industries appear to have aligned their operational processes with clearly defined goals, leveraging formal platform teams and automation for provisioning. Meanwhile, industries with low maturity may lack these foundations, with issues like varying departmental configurations or neglect of setup speed reducing productivity.

The promise of cloud and automation in future development environments

The findings of the report underscore the promise of cloud-hosted development environments (CDEs) in defining the future of software development. These environments provide flexibility, scalability, and robust collaboration tools.

Yet, the report also notes a potential knowledge gap. While 79% of respondents reported using fully-managed CDEs, many demonstrated only a partial understanding of their technical features. This suggests some overestimation of adoption levels, with education remaining a key requirement in bridging gaps within organisations.

One key revelation from the report involves organisations with a higher focus on automation. 

“Only 7% of respondents can create environments in under an hour, typically in highly standardised setups such as fully managed cloud-hosted environments,” the report’s authors explain.

By contrast, organisations using VDI or outdated manual approval pipelines exhibit far slower provisioning speeds.

Key recommendations  

To keep pace with an industry trending towards a standardised future, organisations must address key inefficiencies while ensuring that development environments meet the demands of both administrators and developers. 

The report calls for a streamlined decision-making process and greater collaboration between administrators and developers to mitigate frustrations and misalignments. These efforts must consider maturity levels.

Improved setups for organisations with low standardisation maturity will likely resolve delays and gaps in security or operational workflows. Meanwhile, those with higher maturity should focus efforts on refining their flexibility and ensuring scalability for continued growth.  

The journey to achieving operational excellence in development environments is far from straightforward. Yet, with an approach that prioritises balance – between flexibility, security, and usability –the rewards are clear: faster workflows, better governance, and a more satisfied development workforce.

(Photo by Drew Beamer)

See also: Software development trends and predictions for 2025

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Tags: automation, cloud, coding, development, development environments, programming, report, research, study

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