Millions of people learned to code during lockdown

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Millions more wished they did

A developer writing code
(Image credit: Shutterstock / Elle Aon)

Millions of people in the UK took up coding during the lockdown, with many more admitting they wished they had, a new report claims.

Zen Internet polled 2,149 adults in the UK and found that 6% had took up coding since March 2020. With the UK population estimated at 67 million, that would mean roughly four million people. What’s more, the same percentage - 6% - said they wished they had tried coding. 

Breaking the results down by age, Zen Internet found that coding is a “young person’s game, but maybe not that young”. Between millennials (aged 25 - 34) and Gen Z’ers (16-24), the former have had more people try out coding for the first time. Also, there were more millennials regretting they didn’t try it, compared to Gen Z’ers. 

Among the different places in the UK, Manchester was described as “the city filled with the most regrets”, as one in every eight people wished they had given coding a go, a year ago. Leicester, on the other hand, can be dubbed “the coding capital of the UK”, as one in seven had taken up the hobby.

Low-code and no-code platforms

“It’s exciting to see such enthusiasm to take up something that plays a key role in the digital-first world we now find ourselves in,” said Paul Stobart, CEO at Zen Internet. 

“Coding underpins so much of what we do in the online world from our computer systems to our digital infrastructure and everything in between. Those that used their lockdown time wisely to learn new skills such as coding will find their enhanced competency in this digital world will hold them in good stead.”

At the same time, low-code and no-code platforms, which enable professionals to create websites and web-based assets without extensive knowledge of coding, have seen increasing adoption during the pandemic. 

According to Gartner, 75% of large enterprises will be using at least four low-code development tools for both IT application development and citizen development initiatives by the end of 2025.

Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.