Regardless of how much time and effort developers spend on any software, the chances are that they missed something. Thanks to the fast-evolving trends in software creation, however, testing is no longer a post-development activity. Yet, despite this industry shift, the main principles remain the same — identify bugs and fix them before the customer notices. We prepared these essential software testing statistics to keep you up to date with the situation and trends in the industry, so read on.
Software Testing Statistics (Editor’s Choice)
- Only 18% of all software testers surveyed studied for the job. (The QA Lead)
- With 60%, deployed untested and broken code is the most common production bug. (Hacker Rank)
- The software testing market surpassed $40 billion in 2020. (Global Market Insights)
- The banking, financial services, and insurance segment accounted for 28.5% of the European software testing market in 2020. (Global Market Insights)
- The automation testing market should reach $68 billion by 2025. (RWS)
- 44% of IT companies automated 50% of their testing 2019-2020. (RWS)
Basic Software Testing Stats
1. Only 29% of mobile developers engage in exploratory testing.
A recent report from Forrester shows that only a few mobile app developers use software testing methodologies such as exploratory testing. This particular method covers specific use cases without strictly written scenarios. That’s one reason why many mobile apps fail, since the lack of testing impacts quality.
(Testlio)
2. The average app loses 80% daily active users in the first 30 days since launch.
Apps lose 90% of their DAUs in 30 days, with 77% in the first three days. In 90 days, this percentage is 95%. Over 1.5 million apps on Google Play alone lose most of their users in just a few months.
(AndewChen)
3. Software testing statistics show high-performing organizations spend 22% less time on bug fixing.
Organizations that dedicate time to proper testing spend 22% less time on unplanned work, so they are able to allocate 29% more time to work on new features. Aside from deploying 200 times more frequently, they have 2,555 times faster lead times and bounce back 24 times faster.
(Puppet)
4. Poor experience is the reason why 67% of customers drop an app.
Churn often happens when the user doesn’t require the product or is too busy, and there isn’t much businesses can do about it. QA testing statistics, however, show that organizations can reduce customer churn caused by bad experience by adequate testing prior to product launch.
(Testlio)
5. 35% of organizations include non-testers in the software testing tasks.
Although more than half of companies surveyed (55%) have a differentiated role for testing, some still use non-testers. However, there is a clear benefit to distinguishing the role of a developer and a QA engineer or software tester. Using the latter approach allows developers to have more time for coding, software testing statistics show.
(Invozone)
6. Only 18% of all software testers surveyed studied to be testers.
More often than not, software testers haven’t actually studied for the job. In fact, 24% of them became testers by accident. According to replies in one survey, 65% of software testers learned the ropes just by doing it. To that end, 56% used books on this topic, while 44% finished classes and obtained certificates, according to software testing industry statistics.
(The QA Lead)
7. With 60%, the most common bug in the software testing industry is deployed untested or broken code.
Other than broken code, with more or less 10%, a wiped-out database is the next issue testers encounter. Similarly, a shut down production server is next in line (around 9%). Other noteworthy bugs include turning on the firewall without SSH access (5%) or forgetting to switch IIS back on (4%).
(HackerRank)
8. 36% of software testers report to the project manager.
In 2019, the number of testers reporting to project managers decreased from 43% in 2018. Aside from that, 34% report to a development manager.
(The QA Lead)
Software Testing Industry Statistics
9. The software testing market surpassed $40 billion in 2020.
The software testing market size keeps growing and is projected to keep climbing at 7% CAGR from 2021 to 2027. The growth is underpinned by technological advancements, most notably AI, which improves overall test performance through visual validation, accuracy, and flexibility.
(Global Market Insights)
10. The banking, financial services, and insurance segment accounted for 28.5% of the European software testing market in 2020.
This sector is projected to grow at a 5.5% CAGR through 2027, according to software development testing statistics. Digital software adoption in banking apps is driving growth, while the rise of complex financial transactions creates software dependencies, further making a case for testing.
(Global Market Insights)
11. The US software testing market was estimated to be worth $13.5 billion in 2020.
China, meanwhile, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.9% between 2020 and 2027, reaching $19.2 billion by 2027. Other notable countries with a fair share of the software testing services market are Japan and Canada. The first is forecast to grow at the CAGR of 11.6% in the same period, while the latter will climb at an 11.5% CAGR. In Europe, Germany is expected to have a 9.8% CAGR over the same period.
(Globe Newswire)
12. The automation testing market is on track to reach $68 billion by 2025.
Automation aids developer teams in completing repeating tasks and identifying more bugs that need fixing. Moreover, it allows them to have constant feedback and execute test coverage. As a result, it saves money, time, and resources to the organization, automated software testing quality statistics suggest.
(RWS)
13. QA budgets were expected to reach 40% of the development cost by 2019.
For large companies, the software testing budget accounted for 18% of the total development expenses at the beginning of the decade. It grew to over 35% in four years, only to fall to 31% in 2016. Although big companies are boosting their QA capacities, startups aren’t spending even 25% of the development costs for QA, as evidenced by quality assurance statistics.
(Testlio)
14. 52% of IT teams believe the higher number of releases is responsible for the increase in QA budgets.
Customer retention requires constant improvement and development. With the increasing digital revolution, new test cycles are a necessity. More teams are adopting DevOps and similar innovations, so there is a higher frequency of releases. This necessitates continuous QA testing.
(Testlio)
15. There are 5.2 software testers per capita per 100,000 people worldwide.
Ireland boasts the highest number of testers per capita (61.2 per 100,000 people). The US and Canada share the second spot with 37.1 software testers per 100,000 people each. Next comes Israel, with 36.5 testers per 100,000 people.
(Businessdocbox)
16. Software and QA testers comprise 7.8% of developer roles worldwide, software testing stats show.
Among all developer roles, this one has the smallest representation. By contrast, full-stack developers make up 51.9% of all respondents, followed by 50% of those working as back-end developers as well, or 32.8% who work as front-end developers.
(Stack Overflow)
Stats on the Most Popular Software Testing Tools
17. 47% of testers turn to tools for testing or QA, such as HP ALM, PractiTest, Xray, and Team Foundation Server.
Testers have a wide array of technologies at their disposal, available for testing purposes. If you don’t have an in-house QA and aren’t sure how to use these, there are also many companies that conduct QA and software testing.
(The QA Lead)
18. 44% of developers use issue tracker solutions regularly.
Issue trackers are the most commonly used among tools for automated software testing, statistics show. That said, only 10% actually use a code review tool. Some of the more popular ones include Phabricator, Collaborator, CodeScene, GitHub, Veracode, and Rhodecode.
(JetBrains, Kinsta)
19. Jira is the most popular issue tracker tool, preferred by 68% of developers.
According to research from JetBrains, the majority of the surveyed developers used Jira for tracking software development and testing processes. Following far behind is GitHub with 26%. The third sport is held by Trello with 19%. Among other popular tools, developers reported using GitLab Issue Board (14%), Redmine (10%), Microsoft TFS (9%), YouTrack (7%), and Asana (4%).
(JetBrains)
20. About 37% of YouTrack users have 11+ years of experience.
In comparison to YouTrack users, 29% of developers using other issue trackers have the same level of experience. Software testing industry statistics show that this tool is number one among data engineers, analysts, and scientists. In fact, these account for 22% of all YouTrack-ers. On the contrary, they comprise 6% of all respondents to the survey.
(JetBrains)
21. Bugs reports are the most common testing documentation.
As many as 79% of users report using them in 2019 alone. Meanwhile, most of the testers (76%) use the likes of Redmine or Jira Bugzilla as test management tools to follow up on them. Following this, there are agile workflow tools, with 59% of testers using them.
(The QA Lead, QA Intelligence)
22. 44% of IT companies automated 50% of their testing 2019-2020.
Many organizations are turning toward test automation, statistics indicate. This trend is gaining ground at the same pace as businesses adopt DevOps and agile methodologies to provide both speed and quality of delivery.
(RWS)
23. Only 44% of modern companies use A/B testing software.
According to A/B statistics, not nearly enough companies utilize the benefits of any kind of A/B software. This type of software, however, would enable them to faster adapt to customer needs.
(Finances Online)
Quality Assurance Statistics
24. 44% of QA teams claim that early participation in their company’s projects was very challenging.
Joining the projects from the beginning of their lifecycle for tester teams could be very challenging. Similarly, 43% of software testers cited handling test environments and data as quite difficult.
(Digitate)
25. 74% of software testers perform activities like scripting and automation in addition to their primary role.
Typically, QA involves strategic planning about software testing, communication with developers, and bug and issue documentation. Software testing is just one of the activities. So, 74% deal with scripting and automation, and 57% handle data management tests, QA statistics indicate.
(The QA Lead)
26. The majority of QA teams consist of one to five employees.
Based on some research about QA employees, the statistics indicate that 48% of all QA teams surveyed include one to five employees. Only 24% consist of six to 15 software testers as of 2019.
(The QA Lead)
27. Out of 400 ads for testers in a study, 77 asked specifically for software testers.
Further, in 41, it was specified that the role is for QA testers. In nine ads, the role was for automation testers, while seven ads asked specifically for test engineers. Following that, there were seven ads for test analysts, four for manual testers, four for penetration testers, and four for business analysts. More than half used some unique name referring to a software tester, quality assurance testing statistics indicate.
(Research Gate)
The Future of Software Testing
28. 78% of organizations perform test automation for regression testing or functional tests.
While regression testing is typically a manual job, it takes time, which is why most switch to an automated version. The way regression testing with test automation metrics works is simple. The tool lets the testing environment know about any regression tests upcoming at specific intervals, and all bugs are reported after the update.
(Tarika Technologies)
29. Around 87% of companies use an agile model in software development testing.
One of the most software testing types includes the agile approach. After Agile, DevOps grew in 2019 to 36%, an 8% increase YoY. Software testing trends further indicate that exploratory testing is a big thing. Namely, 82% of software development firms and other organizations use it as a methodology, with 61% sticking to a script-based approach.
(The QA Lead)
Software Testing in a Nutshell
Despite the demands from the digitalized world to release applications and software faster, the need to maintain quality not only remains but is bigger than ever given the competition in almost every field. Hopefully, these software testing statistics will be the start of a solid knowledge base that will push you to further explore this growing field.
