48% of UK firms plan to add developers despite AI fears

By Priya Raman

48% of UK firms plan to increase their software developer headcount over the next two years, according to Ready for the Future?, a report from not-for-profit tech training provider CodeYourFuture.

Another 38% expect developer teams to stay at their current size, while 7% have frozen hiring and 4% plan cuts, CodeYourFuture said.

For HR leaders, those figures make recruitment volume and skills design immediate decisions, rather than supporting assumptions that AI has removed the need for developers.

What is AI changing in engineering work?

Ninety-eight percent of CodeYourFuture respondents said AI is dramatically accelerating software development. Another 71% said code is being written faster than teams can comprehend the codebase.

The report calls the resulting long-term loss of understanding “cognitive debt,” a gap that builds when work is continually outsourced to AI. That loss of understanding makes issues harder to resolve and improvements harder to make, according to CodeYourFuture.

For employers, AI adoption therefore touches code-review capacity and knowledge retention, not just developer productivity.

Abhiruchi Thatte-Carrino, Matomo’s head of engineering, said:

“You still need developers, because if you don’t have good developers, AI is completely useless. If you can’t tell AI what you want it to do and review the output that it’s producing, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

“When hiring you need to think can this person leverage the tools? Can they learn? Can they challenge? It’s about how you approach and solve a problem. Individuality for me is also really important.”

Where are security failures showing up?

Twenty-seven percent of respondents had already experienced a security vulnerability directly resulting from AI-generated code, while 21% had suffered an application outage or system failure, CodeYourFuture found.

Together, those figures put AI-generated code review, vulnerability checks and application reliability on the employer agenda. They also make code-review staffing and resilience planning relevant to hiring decisions.

Could AI trigger another hiring wave?

Almost two-thirds, 64%, now expect a wave of “AI regret,” meaning short-term AI output proves insufficient and employers must rehire engineers, according to the report.

The expectation reaches 71% among SMEs and 69% in technology companies, compared with 54% in large enterprises. For talent planners, that makes experienced hiring and internal skills planning relevant even as companies add early-career talent.

How are hiring priorities changing?

With AI able to produce code at speed, engineers now spend 45% of their time maintaining and debugging code, the report said.

According to CodeYourFuture, engineering leaders rank adaptability, 49%, and willingness to learn, 40%, as the leading traits in early-career candidates, ahead of expertise in a specific programming language, 36%.

Those priorities give recruiters a concrete screening test: whether candidates can use tools, judge output and adapt as requirements change. More than half of hiring teams, 55%, now assess candidates mainly on their ability to critique and defend code, CodeYourFuture found.

Another 78% place moderate or high emphasis on personal resilience and adaptability, rising to 94% among SMEs, CodeYourFuture found. Only 16% recruit through non-traditional routes such as apprenticeships, according to the report.

That creates a mismatch between the traits employers prioritize and the routes they use. Employers want candidates who can challenge output and learn with new tools, yet most hiring still comes through established channels.

Germán Bencci, CodeYourFuture’s CEO and founder, said:

“At CodeYourFuture, we see first-hand how people entering the tech world from non-conventional routes bring these highly valued skills to a role. Every early-career hire also reduces a company’s reliance on a small group of senior engineers, which most of the leaders in our research already see as a serious risk.”

“AI is changing the nature of engineering work and creating new opportunities for entry-level talent. Employers are looking for adaptability and resilience, not just technical proficiency, and I hope that means a far more diverse range of people are hired into technical roles.”

“We already know that companies with diverse management teams achieve higher revenues and greater levels of innovation. Developing a more diverse pipeline of talent throughout an organisation can only accelerate this.”

Taken together, the report offers no support for a wholesale contraction in technical hiring: 48% of UK firms plan expansion, even as 71% say AI-written code outpaces team comprehension. Employers will need to weigh faster code production against security failures and the erosion of engineering knowledge.

Employers will have to connect entry-level recruitment with experienced reviewers, stronger controls over AI-generated code and knowledge retention. The next hiring cycle will test whether UK firms can turn AI-assisted development into durable capacity instead of faster production paired with long-term cognitive debt.