State of the Automation Professional 2023 Insights

Welcome to the State of the Automation Professional report 2023. For four years in a row, we have taken the pulse of the automation developers' community and this year we have expanded the research universe to include all automation professionals.

This is our annual UiPath Community industry report that offers insights into what drives job satisfaction in the automation space and our objectives year over year are to:

• Gain insights about the automation professionals' attitudes and technology usage

• Define trends in automation careers. Be present thought leadership content, generate awareness for HR, CoE leads.

• Support customers, partners, and automation professionals with valuable insights about satisfaction, level of competence, tools used, resources available etc.

• Expand and improve our ability to help automation professionals in their learning journeys

The 2023 report is based on a global survey of 1,639 automation professionals and students. Respondents were recruited primarily through channels owned by UiPath. The data collection was fielded in March through May 2023. We received responses from all regions with the highest percentage in Asia-Pacific and Japan, just like the previous years.

This is our way to voice different automation professionals, part of the UiPath Community, a mix of developers and other business roles in this field like business analysts, process mining specialists and citizen developers.

The data gathered is a way to understand our community infrastructure. Looking at their profiles, background, tech stacks, level of satisfaction, product expertise, we can further shape automation journeys.

From product usage to where tech might be heading each year, we listen. It came naturally to introduce a section about AI to understand perceptions, and openness to integrate it into their workflows.

Like we saw in previous years, in 2023, the majority of automation professionals are working in-house for their organizations and are highly experienced. 69% of respondents consider themselves to be at an advanced and expert level with software automation development.

They see value in education. 99% declared that they have educated themselves in the last year. Video tutorials, documentation, and forums are the top online resources they accessed.

Each year we explore the technologies and tools automation professionals are using. Two of the most common UiPath products that the respondents are interested in building expertise around are AI-powered: UiPath Studio product family, UiPath AI Center™, and UiPath Document Understanding.

SQL, Python, and VB/VBA are the main programming languages that automation developers know, and as we see each year, Microsoft, SQL Server, and Google are the most common technologies used.

Automation developers have as a main task building and shaping RPA and automation solutions based on weekly requirements. In terms of struggles at work year over year we see incomplete documentation, automated processes that aren't suitable for automation, and difficulty in getting what they need from business owners.

75% of developers are using an AI-based tool for their automation projects and most commonly, optical character recognition and document understanding.

The top three reasons respondents prefer UiPath are because it is user friendly, it’s easy to learn, and it has a community. The role of UiPath Community is grounded and 82% of UiPath users consider themselves to be part of the UiPath Community, up from 77% last year.

Being at the center of developing our products, our community plays a significant role in shaping innovation further. Our purpose each year is to invest in augmenting the automation professionals experience across UiPath products and help them drive innovation inside their companies.

Dive into the data for a deeper understanding of what automation professionals are experiencing in the working environment, how easy they find transitioning into this role, and insights on AI. Get a free copy of the report and share it with other automation enthusiasts for key insights about the automation space.