Jessica O'ConnorResearch from Malt revealed a major shift in technology hiring trends, with demand for traditional programming languages declining as organisations increasingly adopt low-code, no-code and artifical intelligence (AI) tools.
According to the Malt Tech Trends 2026 report, demand for languages including Java (-32%), C++ (-25%) and PHP (-33%) fell sharply over the past year.
At the same time, demand for projects involving workflow automation platform n8n surged by 1,390%, reflecting growing adoption of tools that require little or no traditional coding expertise.
The report analysed project briefs and keyword searches from more than 900,000 freelancers and 90,000 companies across Europe, the UK and the Middle East.
Benoit Guillon, vice president of engineering at Malt, said: “There is a clear market shift towards low and no code tools, driven by a need to reduce risk, squeeze time to market, and test more.
“That is the promise of low code and no-code tools like n8n which is now leveling in project volume with Java.”
The research found that n8n is increasingly being used for CRM and marketing automation, AI agent integration, API connectors and data pipeline management.
Malt’s data also showed that 82% of demand for n8n-related projects came from businesses with fewer than 50 employees, highlighting strong adoption among startups and SMEs.
The report identified broader shifts across software development and digital platforms. Demand for mobile developers increased by 20% in 2025, while cross-platform projects rose from 36% to 45% year-on-year.
Meanwhile, demand for WordPress declined by 11%, with its market share shrinking by more than 30%, while Webflow usage increased by 39%.
Guillon added: “The low-code and no-code market growth is now driven by the rapid adoption of workflow automation tools, the most famous examples being n8n, Make and Zapier.
“Since 2024, AI has given these tools their second act as they democratized LLM usage to non-experts. This explosive growth is indicative of the shift from being viewed as niche tools to mainstream automation and integration platforms in the space of a year.”
He added that traditional programming skills are unlikely to disappear entirely, but organisations are increasingly combining conventional software engineering with low-code approaches.
He said: “That isn’t to say that traditional skills will disappear completely, rather these solutions must now interoperate and integrate so that we benefit from the best of both worlds.
“With the evolution of no-code and vibe-coding tools, we will probably see more and more strategies with solid ‘as-code’ foundations complemented by no and low-code solutions too.”
