Software Development Outsourcing Statistics (2025 Edition)

In 2025, IT outsourcing keeps empowering global businesses and small companies to hire third-party specialists to promote digital transformation, optimize financial input, and access global tech talents. This article analyzes the software development outsourcing statistics, focusing on its market size, trends, outsourced services, and skill gaps. 

Global Market Size & Growth: Statistics

Outsourcing IT services becomes a global mainstream, which shows a promising projections for the further growth of its market demand.

• The global IT outsourcing market is projected to rise at a CAGR of 8.5% from 2024 to 2033, reaching a value of 1318.28 bln by 2023, as in 2024, the value hits around $672.7 bln. (Business Research Insights)

• The outsourcing industry is valued at around $730 bln and is anticipated to grow by 9.4% annually. (African Association of Entrepreneurs)

• It’s anticipated that global IT outsourcing will rise to $651.54 bln, as well as reach $850.73 bln, with a CAGR of 5.48%. (Mordor Intelligence)

• APAC (Asia-Pacific Region) is anticipated to hit $129.78 bln by 2025, while the projections indicate a CAGR growth of 7.03% from 2025 to 2030. (Statista)

• In terms of global comparison of IT outsourcing, the USA is predicted to gain the highest revenue of $218.02 bln in 2025. (Statista)

• In Europe, the IT outsourcing sector is anticipated to reach a revenue of $282,149.2 mln by 2030, with a rise in CAGR of 7.4% from 2025 to 2030. (Grand View Research)

• Latin America is projected to hit $126,320.9 mln with a CAGR of 10.1% from 2025 to 2030. (Grand View Research)

• In Eastern Europe, IT outsourcing is expected to grow to $5.34 bln in 2025, which is anticipated to raise the market volume by $7.43 bln with a CAGR of 6.82% from 2025 to 2030. (Statista)

• The IT outsourcing market in Australia is expected to hit the value of $21.26 bln by 2029 with a CAGR of 8.41% from 2025 to 2029. (Tech Business News)

Offshore vs. Onshore Outsourcing: Statistics

Outsourcing itself is a broad concept that encompasses offshoring and nearshoring types. Relocating business IT functions to different countries (offshoring) and hiring in neighboring countries (nearshoring) depict current approaches to third-party software development.  

• Around 13% of companies intended to align with digital offshoring, considering the talent shortages in the home location landscape. (OECD)

• Offshoring was a central theme to consider, as 42.5% of European organizations applied cloud computing to host e-mail systems and preserve files. (The Business Research Company)

• 21% of small businesses are interested in hiring a third-party nearshoring to maintain competitive advantages and embrace new technologies. (HatchWorksAI)

Key Outsourced Software Development Services: Statistics

With the rapid expansion of IT directions, the business sector aims to partner with a third-party tech provider to cover the aspects of AI, cybersecurity, blockchain, etc. 

• 78% of respondents indicate their organizations applied AI at least to cover one operational function in 2024. (McKinsey). 

• According to research, around 81% of the leading public companies apply blockchain. (MDPI)

• 93% of organizations anticipate entrusting various facets of their cybersecurity defenses to specialized service providers within the next two years. (Forbes) 

Outsourcing Trends and Insights: Statistics

Regardless of the extensive digital transformation, there are top trending directions for businesses to hire outsourcing specialists to cover cloud-based services, digital platform integrations, and RPA.

• Over 41% of global tech and business leaders are strategically planning to invest in cloud-based services to streamline their workload management, underlining the new angles in IT outsourcing demand and requirements. (Mordor Intelligence)

• 86.4% of companies intend to integrate digital platforms and applications by 2027, reflecting a growing strategic emphasis on outsourcing and comprehensive digital transformation. (Mordor Intelligence)

• According to the predictions, RPA (Robotic Process Automation) will be an indispensable part of operations among 90% of large enterprises by 2025. (Gartner)

Result Efficiency of IT Outsourcing: Statistics 

IT outsourcing provides a range of benefits, including cost-effectiveness, increased security, streamlined performance, etc.

• Companies underline that IT outsourcing affected performance improvement, leading to a 25% increase in system uptime. (Number Analytics)

• According to the research, outsourcing cybersecurity aspects enabled a mid-sized bank to reduce the risk of security breaches by 40% while remaining regulatory-compliant. (Number Analytics)

• One of the principal reasons for IT outsourcing is that hiring a third party can preserve up to 40% of the organizational budget. (MSBU)

• Hiring a third-party IT representative can speed up the development cycles by 50%. (Number Analytics)

• The partnership with the leading cloud provider reduces up to 30% of operational costs, enabling businesses to optimize performance during high-traffic events. (Number Analytics)

• By shifting their IT responsibilities to third-party vendors, the organizations benefited from 30% to 75% lower service costs than in developed countries. (Springer Open)

Outsourcing for Small Businesses: Statistics

Small businesses consider software development outsourcing as a key solution to optimize their competitiveness. 

• 22% of small businesses aimed to partner with outsourced providers for IT services. (Passive Secrets)

• Around 37% of small companies prefer outsourcing in order to stay competitive. (DemandSage)

• 83% of small businesses are interested in maintaining financial investment in outsourcing services. (DemandSage)

• 24% of small businesses choose to partner with third parties to optimize the efficiency of their business. (CapitalCounselor)

• Approximately 14% of small companies indicate that outsourcing partners handle more than half of their cybersecurity operations. (CapitalCounselor)

Talent Demand and Skills Gap: Statistics

Rapid promotion of digital transformation, AI integration, etc., leads to a shortage of tech talent.

• According to Robert Half's research, companies experience a 44% gap in IT skills associated with AI, machine learning, and data science. 

• Companies face a 25% shortage of technology and automation tech professionals. (Robert Half)

• Business organizations experience a 30% shortage in tech talent related to cybersecurity and privacy. (Robert Half)

Conclusion

The discussed software development outsourcing statistics underline the global demand for accessing global tech talents. With the evolving trends of RPA and cloud computing, global businesses face complexities in hiring and retaining professionals within cybersecurity, AI & ML directions. Nevertheless, with the demand for reskilling, outsourcing still brings benefits of cost reduction and accelerated development, etc.