The 2025 Developer Insights Survey: The Report

Role Overlaps for external SAP developers

Part I: Introduction and General Information​

Welcome to the 2025 SAP Developer Insights Survey report. This annual survey targets SAP’s existing external developer audience. It is used to track demographics, usage patterns, and trends within that population. 2025 is the fifth year we have conducted the survey. The survey program is led by the SAP Ecosystem and Community team. Key support is provided by the SAP Global Experience Management Office (XMO). Several other SAP teams provide advice and inputs to survey content. Those teams are listed at the end of this report.

The 2025 survey was open for six weeks – from January 22nd through March 7th.

Using social media announcements, SAP’s Developer News show, and a web-popup on Community web sites, we invited all technical professionals in the SAP ecosystem to participate in the survey.

Each year’s survey is composed of a mix of new topic questions and repeat select questions from past years to track trends.

Key Findings from the 2025 Survey​

Generative AI is Positively Affecting our Developer Ecosystem – While these tools are not exclusively Joule-based, roughly half of our respondents report evaluating Gen AI developer tooling and, among those using it, over half report that these tools have a “profound positive impact” in their real world use.

Low Code Use is Increasing – SAP Build low code tools lead in this space. Overall use of Low Code products on production projects continues to increase.

BTP Guidance Framework – limited awareness — this important guidance document was announced at TechEd this past November, but – as with BTP Developers Guide in 2024 – barely half of respondents were aware of this document’s existence.

Work-from-Home Continues Trending Down – we have been tracking these numbers since 2021. 6% fewer folks used their home as their primary workplace when compared to last year.

These topics will be covered in more detail in the rest of the report.

General Topics​

We included a number of general questions in the survey covering such topics as age, work location and status, as well as role.

Employment Status and Relation to SAP​

Employment

This shows increases in both the oldest age buckets for 2025. This was accompanied by similar decreases in the middle two age buckets ( ranging from 25 – 44 years of age). This merits deeper research as it potentially indicates either a gap in hiring younger employees to cover the normal aging of our community, or an outright loss of qualified younger staff. The two year trend in the 25-34 group reinforces that idea.

​ Role Overlaps for external SAP developersPart I: Introduction and General Information​Welcome to the 2025 SAP Developer Insights Survey report. This annual survey targets SAP’s existing external developer audience. It is used to track demographics, usage patterns, and trends within that population. 2025 is the fifth year we have conducted the survey. The survey program is led by the SAP Ecosystem and Community team. Key support is provided by the SAP Global Experience Management Office (XMO). Several other SAP teams provide advice and inputs to survey content. Those teams are listed at the end of this report.The 2025 survey was open for six weeks – from January 22nd through March 7th.Using social media announcements, SAP’s Developer News show, and a web-popup on Community web sites, we invited all technical professionals in the SAP ecosystem to participate in the survey.Each year’s survey is composed of a mix of new topic questions and repeat select questions from past years to track trends.Key Findings from the 2025 Survey​Generative AI is Positively Affecting our Developer Ecosystem – While these tools are not exclusively Joule-based, roughly half of our respondents report evaluating Gen AI developer tooling and, among those using it, over half report that these tools have a “profound positive impact” in their real world use.Low Code Use is Increasing – SAP Build low code tools lead in this space. Overall use of Low Code products on production projects continues to increase.BTP Guidance Framework – limited awareness — this important guidance document was announced at TechEd this past November, but – as with BTP Developers Guide in 2024 – barely half of respondents were aware of this document’s existence.Work-from-Home Continues Trending Down – we have been tracking these numbers since 2021. 6% fewer folks used their home as their primary workplace when compared to last year.These topics will be covered in more detail in the rest of the report.General Topics​We included a number of general questions in the survey covering such topics as age, work location and status, as well as role.Employment Status and Relation to SAP​Employment”What is your current employment status?”  SAP Developer Community CompositionWe have seen no significant change in these breakdowns from year to year.SAP Developer Community Age DistributionThis shows increases in both the oldest age buckets for 2025. This was accompanied by similar decreases in the middle two age buckets ( ranging from 25 – 44 years of age). This merits deeper research as it potentially indicates either a gap in hiring younger employees to cover the normal aging of our community, or an outright loss of qualified younger staff. The two year trend in the 25-34 group reinforces that idea.Where are the Developers?​We asked, “Which country are you based in?”By country, India has the largest number of respondents and probably the densest geographic concentration, followed by Germany, and then the USA. When grouped by SAP region, however, EMEA North is largest.The proportions remain essentially unchanged from 2024.Part II. Narrowing the Response SetA primary objective of our survey is to build a model of our community’s usage patterns. It helps us build more effective programs. With that goal in mind, in the remainder of the report we will narrow the data we’ll consider in these ways:External Developers Only – we exclude responses from SAP employees, and others (students, analysts, etc.)Recent Development Experience – we only include responses from those who stated that they had been part of an SAP extension or integration project within the past yearWhen we filter the data set in this way, we are left with a set of 628 responses that we’ll work with for the remainder of the report.Workplace and TrendsOffice Location”As of right now, where do you primarily physically work from?”  Year-to-year trend in WorkplaceThis shows a slowing trend of employees moving back to conventional offices from home. From a past Developer Survey, 29% of respondents reported they had primarily worked at home prior to the pandemic.Recent SAP Project Experience?​”Have you developed integrations or extensions for any SAP products or technologies in the past 12 months?” Extension and Integration are key scenarios for developers working with SAP applications. We wanted to focus on developers with recent experience in these areas. Roughly 70% of developers answered “Yes” here.Popular Programming Languages​”Which programming languages have you used in your development work over the past 12 months? Please select all that apply.” This was posed as a multiple response question. ABAP dominates, as it has in every year of our survey. JavaScript is very popular as well, which could be attributed to its use in both SAPUI5 and CAP. Java and Python are roughly tied for third place. The relative positions of these top four languages hasn’t changed much, year to year.We extended our survey beyond just language use to ask about popular frameworks.Popular Programming Frameworks​We asked respondents who are Developers to pick which common front and back-end frameworks they have worked with in the past year.Front-EndsBack-EndsApplication and Business Technology Platform Architectures​SAP applications can be extended using any one of several architectural approaches. These can be grouped into two major classes: on-stack (in-app) and side-by-side (essentially, BTP-based).We were wondering which approaches are most popular.Popular Extension Architectures”For the most recent extension project that you were part of, what was the principal runtime architecture of the back-end elements?”  We don’t distinguish between newer and older SAP applications (e.g., S/4HANA vs. ECC) — this likely explains the dominance of “on-stack ABAP”. Aside from the obvious dominance of ABAP, we can also see that CAP is relatively popular. As with last year’s results on this question, we see Low Code products like Build Apps and Build Process Automation are popular — this question is asking about real production projects, and seeing those two account for roughly 10% of all extension projects highlights the value of these tools.ABAP and CAP both have style or language variants in their respective frameworks. ABAP can be programmed as “ABAP for Cloud Development” or “ABAP Standard”. CAP is available in JavaScript or Java language variants. Where the respondent selected ABAP or CAP, we asked about the variant used on the project: ABAP VariantsCAP VariantsThe rough 50-50 breakdown of ABAP styles is consistent with responses elsewhere in the survey. It reflects that roughly half of the ABAP projects are ECC or very early forms of S/4HANA. Importantly, the group that didn’t understand the difference is considerably smaller than last year (2% versus 5% in 2024).CAP/JavaScript is plainly most popular for CAP projects. Unlike last year, we do have respondents reporting the use of CAP/Java projects, although the percentage is modest – 5%.Popular IDEs​We are always curious about general work patterns of developers. We asked about developer’s most commonly used editors. While it would be difficult in such a survey of all developers to add many questions, we were particularly curious about most popular IDE or editor. Preferred IDE or Editor”Which IDE or text editor do you most commonly use for development tasks?”  Consistent with past year’s results, the editor of choice will depend on the language. SAP GUI and — arguably — Eclipse are the primary editors for ABAP, so it’s maybe no surprise that they are reflected as most popular. This is the first year that SAP Build Code appeared in the survey. We maintained separate choices for BAS and Build Code to see where folks might say that they have been using BAS, but have not yet transitioned to the broader capabilities offered by SAP Build Code.Potential / Use of Generative AI for Developers​Beginning with the 2024 survey, we asked developers about their thoughts and use of several major capabilities of Generative AI as it applies to software development.Generative AI for Developers”Which of these GenAI capabilities has your team explored or used? Select the choice that best describes your use of each capability. ”  An brief explanation of each category was included in the survey and is shown below:Code Generation and Autocompletion: GenAI tools can generate code snippets, complete lines of code, or suggest entire functions based on the context provided by the developer.Bug Detection and Code Review: AI models can be trained to identify potential bugs and vulnerabilities in the code. They can also suggest improvements in code quality, best practices, and code consistency.Automated Testing and Test Data Generation: GenAI can be used to create test cases, which can help in thoroughly testing software applications. This includes generating test data that covers edge cases, potentially reducing the time and effort in manual testing.Documentation Generation: AI can assist in generating and updating technical documentation. It can interpret the code and create comprehensive documentation, which is crucial for maintaining and scaling software projects.Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Code: AI models can translate natural language queries into code, allowing developers to express their intent in plain language. This can be particularly helpful for novice developers working with unfamiliar frameworks.Customized User Experience Design: AI can help generate user interface designs to enhance user experience.AI-Powered Development Tools: Integration of AI in IDEs for real-time assistance, such as suggesting optimizations, refactoring code, or even predicting the next steps in development.Automated Code Refactoring: AI can assist in code refactoring by suggesting or even implementing improvements in code structure.Software Design and Architecture: AI can help in generating software design patterns or architectural models based on specified requirements. This can speed up the initial stages of development and ensure adherence to best practices.Enhanced Security Protocols: Generative AI can be used to develop advanced security protocols and encryption methods, providing robust security solutions in software applications.We also believed that Generative AI has been on the scene long enough for folks to being to experiment with putting it to use in meaningful ways. So, we included a couple of questions to gauge their perceptions of its utility to to their teams.Current Gen AI Use”How would you characterize your team’s current use of Generative AI tools or LLMs in your day-to-day work? Consider tools from any vendor or open source. Examples might include Joule, SAP Generative AI Hub, GitHub Copilot, or open source LLMs. (select the most applicable statement)”  Gen AI Effectiveness for Developers”Looking back on the past year, what is your own sense of how the use of Generative AI based tools or LLMs impacted the effectiveness or efficiency of your team?” Joule in SAP Build CodeSeveral Joule features were introduced into SAP Build Code prior to the survey. We asked respondents about their awareness or use of these features.Joule for CDS ModelingJoule for Test Data Set GenerationJoule Code GenerationDevelopment Job RolesWe asked respondents which common development-related roles they perform.”Which roles describe your day-to-day work? (Select all that apply)”Respondents often “wear multiple hats” in their job. This question is asked in “select all that apply” form to capture that information.The Venn diagram on the right depicts the relative overlaps of the top seven roles reported by respondents. The area of each overlapping region reflects the count respondents performing the overlapping roles. For example, from this we can seel that all (UX) “Designers” are also “Developers”. Most but not quite all “Enterprise Architects” also are “Solution Architects”.These patterns of overlap are very similar to those in past years.It is unsurprising that the “Developer” role leads. Architecture roles as a group have increased each year.Development Domains​For respondents selecting “Developer” as one of their roles, we were interested in the specific application Domains they work in:”Which of the following development domains describe your day-to-day work? (select all that apply)”  Year to year, Integration came in higher than we expected. Mobile web front-end development is more common than native mobile application development. This isn’t completely unexpected, but worth noting. Developer Satisfaction with SAP​SAP Development Satisfaction”For your recent experience developing an integration or extension, how would you describe your overall satisfaction with SAP?”  Roughly 74% of respondents report they are “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with their development work with SAP. This is back near the 75% reported two years ago and also up from the 2024 figure, 70%.We also gave all respondents a list of potential obstacles in their use of SAP tools and technologies and asked them to select the most significant pain points. Obstacles in SAP tool us”Which of these potential pain points are obstacles to your development when using SAP tools or frameworks? (select up to three most significant items)”  BTP Guidance FrameworkAwareness and Use of the BTP Guidance Framework”The SAP BTP Guidance Framework was announced at SAP’s TechEd this past November. Which statement best described your level of familiarity with this document?”  Nearly half of respondents were unaware of this document’s release. Raising awareness for this and other related BTP framework documents would be a good goal for 2025.Cloud Insights​We first asked respondents if they used any cloud providers for their projects. For those that answered, “yes”, we asked about the use of several major providers, including SAP BTP. We also asked if their use included SAP or non-SAP projects. This information was condensed into a chart depicting the relative use of each cloud provider.Similar to the earlier questions around BTP Environments, these numbers do not reflect a tally of projects for each platform – instead it reflects developer exposure to each.Using Cloud Providers?”Are you using any cloud providers for your development projects?”  We asked, “Which cloud providers are you using for development projects?” and we asked in a way to separate SAP-related projects from more general use. SAP Business Technology PlatformMicrosoft AzureAmazon Web Services Google Cloud PlatformAlibaba CloudLow / No Code Tools​This is the third consecutive year in which we’ve asked questions around Low Code and No Code (LCNC) products. The list was composed of leaders in the then current Gartner LCNC Magic Quadrant Report and select SAP products. SAP Process Automation — now Build Process Automation — was not yet announced at the time of the 2022 survey, so it only appears in the more recent data.For each product, we asked respondents to select the most applicable category reflecting their awareness or use. These questions were organized as a single large matrix of boxes in Qualtrics – There is no “I am unfamiliar with this product” response. Instead, the respondent simply would skip checking one of the other boxes.It is important to point out that we are depicting response counts in the following charts rather than percentages and that the difference in total annual response counts must be considered to compare between years. The raw respondent count for 2023 was 2.4 times larger than 2022. And 2024 responses were less than half of 2023. We’ll normalize for that in a later table.These depictions can be misleading: our number of respondents each year varies. But we can normalize for that annual variation; what does this look like then? If we extract the data for production use for all products, we can use that to calculate the proportion use of each product by year (in other words, the sum of each column below totals one hundred percent). We can then visualize the relative shift in popularity over time: Productive use of Product2022202320242025Vendor A20%48%15%27%SAP Build family (Build Apps + BPA)2%32%23%35%Vendor B14%28%7%18%SAP Signavio5%14%5%9%Vendor C7%12%3%3%Vendor D2%2%1%3%Vendor E3%4%1%2%Vendor F3%4%1%2%SAP Build low code products dominate in our SAP ecosystem.Learning and Help Resources​We were interested in preferences in the format or media type of learning resources by respondents.Preferred Learning Resources”When learning new skills or technical subjects over the past 12 months, what resources did you tend use the most? Please select up to three resources.”  These results seem relatively unchanged year-to-year. One point of interest is the large difference in popularity between tutorials and MOOCs (53% versus 16% here). Tutorials tend to be hands-on. They are also broken into substantially smaller time chunks. This reinforces our hypothesis that different content types and required time investment have an impact in some learning scenarios. This merits investigation.On the topic of Help, we shifted in this next question from formats to specific web sites. Top SAP Help Resource Sites”What is your preferred resource if you need help, or have a challenge with the SAP technology / tool you are working with? ”  Almost sixty percent of respondents say they use organic search or SAP Community as their primary source of SAP help. This is consistent with past years. This continues to demonstrate good visibility of the Community site overall and likely speaks well for the usefulness of the site content.Satisfaction with SAP Learning HubSAP Learning Hub Awareness”Which of the following best describes your exposure to the SAP Learning site?”Overall Value of Learning Hub”Overall how valuable are the resources on that site in helping you to understand SAP developer technologies?”  Technical Certifications”How many technology-related certification programs have you completed within the past four years?” Survey MethodologyThis report is based on a Qualtrics web-based survey of 1,492 respondents from 58 countries. The survey ran for six calendar weeks between January 22 to March 7th, 2025. Ninety percent of the respondents invested ten minutes or less with the survey.The survey was promoted via the SAP Community website and the SAP Developer Center, sap.com pop-up intercepts, social media posts.Other References​The annual Stack Overflow Developer Survey is an excellent (and no-cost) reference for industry-wide habits of developers.   Read More Technology Blog Posts by SAP articles 

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