Think about building something with LEGOs. You’re not moulding the plastic for each individual brick; you’re simply snapping together pre-made, functional pieces to create something complex and impressive. That’s the essence of low code development—a visual way of building software that lets experts and developers alike assemble applications far more quickly.
What Is Low Code Development?
At its heart, low code is an approach to software development that sidesteps the need for extensive, line-by-line coding. Instead of getting tangled up in complex syntax, teams use platforms equipped with drag-and-drop interfaces and ready-made components to build out workflows, user interfaces, and data connections.
This method effectively builds a bridge between the pressing needs of the business and the often-stretched resources of the IT department. It opens up app development to a wider audience, empowering people with deep operational knowledge—often called ‘citizen developers’—to solve their own day-to-day challenges without needing a degree in computer science.
Accelerating Business Solutions
The main driver behind low code is simple: speed. By handling the repetitive, time-consuming groundwork of traditional coding, it allows organisations to move from a concept to a working application in record time. This kind of agility is invaluable when you need to react to market shifts or solve an internal bottleneck right now, not next quarter.
A low code platform lets your team concentrate on the ‘what’—the business logic and the user experience—instead of getting bogged down in the technical ‘how’. The focus shifts from implementation details to delivering real business value.
This faster development cycle is fuelling significant investment across the UK. In 2023, the UK’s low-code platform market was already valued at around £900 million. Projections show it soaring to over £3.2 billion by 2030, a clear signal of the growing appetite for agile and efficient software solutions. You can read the full research about this market growth to understand its impact.
How It Complements Other Technologies
Low code doesn’t operate in isolation. It works brilliantly alongside other technologies to create comprehensive business systems. It’s often mentioned in the same breath as no-code, which takes the concept a step further by aiming to remove coding entirely, typically for simpler automations and applications. To understand the closely related field that enables powerful workflows without writing code, read this guide on What Is No Code Automation? A Complete Guide [2025].
Low code finds its sweet spot in the middle, giving you the speed of visual development while still allowing professional developers to inject custom code where needed. It’s a powerful blend of speed and flexibility.
Ready to explore how low code can transform your business? Phone 0845 855 0000 today or Send us a message to discuss your strategy.
How Low Code Platforms Actually Work
To really get your head around what low-code development is, it helps to look under the bonnet. These platforms aren’t magic; they’re clever environments designed to hide the sheer complexity of traditional coding, a bit like how a car’s dashboard lets you drive without needing to understand the engine’s inner workings.
At their core, low-code platforms are like a digital workshop, stocked with all the essential tools and pre-made parts you need to build an application. Instead of facing a blank screen and writing thousands of lines of code from scratch, developers and even business users get to work in a structured, visual environment.
This infographic breaks down the core ideas behind low-code, showing how it focuses on visual development, dramatically faster build times, and better collaboration between your business and IT teams.
As you can see, these elements all come together to create a powerful, efficient development process that gets projects over the line much, much faster.
The Building Blocks of a Low-Code Platform
Every low-code platform is built on a few key components that make this rapid development possible. They work together to give users of all skill levels the power to create.
Here are the main ingredients:
- A Visual User Interface (UI) Builder: This is the feature everyone recognises. It lets you design your application screens and forms by simply dragging and dropping things like text boxes, buttons, and charts onto a canvas. No code needed.
- Pre-built Components and Logic: Platforms come with a library of ready-made modules for common tasks, such as user logins, data reporting, or automated email alerts. This saves a massive amount of development time.
- Data Integration Connectors: Think of these as pre-built plugs that let your new app easily connect to systems you already use, like your CRM, accounting software, or other third-party services.
- Workflow and Process Automation Tools: It’s not just about building a pretty screen. Low-code platforms let you visually map out business processes. You can set up rules like, “When a new form is submitted, automatically send an email to the manager for approval.”
This modular approach means a savvy business user—often called a citizen developer—can build a fully working customer intake form in a fraction of the time it would take a traditional developer. They can visually design the form, hook it up to a customer database, and automate the follow-up, all without writing a single line of code.
The Crucial Difference: Low-Code vs. No-Code
The terms “low-code” and “no-code” are often thrown around together, but they serve slightly different purposes. Knowing the difference is key to picking the right tool for the job.
No-code platforms are all about pure drag-and-drop simplicity. They are aimed squarely at business users with zero coding knowledge and are fantastic for building straightforward apps or automating simple workflows. The trade-off? Limited customisation.
Low-code platforms, on the other hand, have what we call an “escape hatch.” They give you all the same friendly visual tools as no-code, but they also allow a professional developer to open the hood and write custom code when a specific, tricky problem comes up. This flexibility is vital for dealing with unique business rules, complex integrations, or performance-heavy features that go beyond the platform’s out-of-the-box tools.
This makes low-code a brilliant bridge between business and IT. It gives your business experts the tools to build what they need quickly, while still offering the depth and control that professional developers need for building robust, enterprise-grade applications. You really get the best of both worlds: speed and flexibility.
Ready to see what low-code can do for your business? Phone 0845 855 0000 today or Send us a message to find out how we can help.
Low Code vs Traditional Development: Which Is Right For Your Business?
Choosing how to build your next piece of software is a big decision. You’re essentially picking between two very different paths: the rapid, accessible world of low-code development, and the deep, granular control offered by traditional, hand-coded software. For any business leader in the East Midlands and across the UK, getting this right means understanding the trade-offs for each project.
Think of traditional development as commissioning a master carpenter to build a completely bespoke piece of furniture. You get total control over every joint, every finish, every tiny detail. The final product can be a work of art, perfectly suited to your exact needs. But, as you can imagine, this level of craftsmanship is slow, expensive, and requires a team of highly skilled specialists to pull off.
Low code, on the other hand, is more like assembling premium, flat-pack furniture. It’s all about speed and getting the job done efficiently. The components are pre-built and tested, allowing your teams to solve business problems in days or weeks, not the months or years a traditional project might take. It’s not a silver bullet for every software need, but it’s an incredibly powerful tool for a massive range of business applications.
Key Differences in Approach
The most obvious difference is the skill set required. Traditional coding is the domain of professional developers who are fluent in complex programming languages like C# or Python. Low code, however, opens the doors to the people who actually understand the business problems best—your operational experts, analysts, and what we now call ‘citizen developers’. This is a huge shift.
The whole development lifecycle looks completely different, too. A traditional project follows a long, winding road of planning, coding, testing, and deployment. Low-code platforms squash that timeline. By using ready-made visual building blocks and pre-tested modules, you can get a working application into the hands of your users much, much faster.
Low code swaps the absolute, granular control of traditional coding for incredible speed and accessibility. The trick is knowing which of those is more valuable for the specific problem you’re trying to solve right now.
As you weigh your options, it’s also useful to look at related trends. For instance, discussions around the future of open-source no-code solutions in large organisations offer great insight into this wider move towards more accessible software creation.
Low Code vs Traditional Development: A Quick Comparison
To put it all into perspective, let’s compare the two approaches side-by-side. Seeing the core differences laid out like this can help you decide which path makes the most sense for your next project.
| Attribute | Low Code Development | Traditional Development |
|---|---|---|
| Development Speed | Exceptionally fast. Great for rapid prototyping and getting solutions deployed quickly. | Slower and more methodical. Requires long coding, testing, and debugging cycles. |
| Cost | Generally lower. Fewer specialist developer hours means faster delivery and reduced expense. | Significantly higher. You’re paying for specialist skills over a much longer project timeline. |
| Skill Requirement | Accessible to business users and ‘citizen developers’ with little to no coding knowledge. | Requires professional developers with deep expertise in specific programming languages. |
| Customisation | Very flexible within the platform’s boundaries, but can be limited for highly unique functions. | Virtually unlimited. If you can imagine it, a skilled developer can probably build it. |
| Maintenance | Much simpler. The platform provider handles the underlying updates and infrastructure. | Falls entirely on your development team, whether they’re in-house or external. |
In the end, this isn’t about one method being definitively “better” than the other. It’s about a ‘horses for courses’ approach. The right choice depends entirely on your immediate business goal, the resources you have available, and your company’s long-term plans.
Ready to transform your business operations? Phone 0845 855 0000 today or Send us a message to discuss your low code strategy.
Real Business Benefits of Adopting Low-Code
So, beyond the technical jargon, what does bringing low-code into your business actually look like? For UK companies, especially here in the East Midlands, this isn’t just about getting new software. It’s a strategic move that tackles some of the biggest headaches in business today: speed, cost, and finding the right people.
The most immediate win is speed. Pure and simple. Low-code lets you move from a bright idea to a working application in a fraction of the time it would normally take. That ability to react and adapt quickly is a massive competitive advantage.
This need for speed is powering a huge demand for smarter development tools. The UK’s software sector is enormous, with around 715,000 businesses, and it’s growing at a compound rate of 8.3% a year. By 2025, it’s expected to be worth nearly £490 billion. Low-code platforms are perfectly positioned to help businesses grab a piece of that action by getting their ideas to market faster and for less.
Slashing Development Costs and Timelines
This is where things get really interesting for your bottom line. By using pre-built blocks and visual design tools, you drastically cut down on the hours you need from expensive, highly specialised developers. The result? Projects get delivered faster and the overall cost drops significantly.
Imagine a logistics firm in Derby. They could spend a fortune on an off-the-shelf system that only does 80% of what they need. Or, they could use low-code to build a custom delivery tracking app in just a few weeks. Not only does this save them tens of thousands of pounds, but they also get a tool that fits their unique workflow like a glove.
Low-code flips the script on IT. Instead of being seen as just a cost, IT becomes a genuine driver of business growth. It unlocks money and resources that can be put back into other strategic projects.
This efficiency means you see a return on your investment much quicker. Because apps are up and running in weeks, not months, they start adding value right away—whether that’s by making your team more productive, improving customer service, or opening up new ways to make money.
Empowering Teams and Closing the Skills Gap
Let’s be honest, finding and keeping great developers is a challenge for almost every business in the UK. The tech talent gap is real. Low-code offers a brilliant, practical way around this problem by opening up app development to more people.
It gives the power to build solutions to the people who know the problems best: your own employees. These “citizen developers” can create small apps for their departments or automate tedious manual processes, all without having to join a long queue for the IT department. It’s fantastic for morale and helps build a real culture of innovation.
- Increased Productivity: When teams can build their own solutions, bottlenecks disappear and everything just runs smoother. Check out our article on the top ways the Power Platform can boost productivity.
- Better Solutions: The best apps are often built by the people who will actually use them every day. They instinctively know what’s needed and create tools that are more intuitive and genuinely helpful.
- Frees Up Pro Developers: By letting business users handle the simpler builds, your professional developers are free to focus their expertise on the complex, mission-critical projects where they add the most value.
Ultimately, low-code is about much more than just building apps faster. It’s about fundamentally changing how your organisation solves problems. It creates a more agile, responsive, and efficient way of working that can set you up for long-term, sustainable growth.
Bringing Low-Code to Life with Microsoft Power Platform
So, what does low-code development actually look like in practice? A fantastic real-world example is the Microsoft Power Platform. It’s not just a single tool but a whole ecosystem designed to put problem-solving capabilities directly into the hands of your team, turning the theory of low-code into practical tools that UK businesses can start using today.
The platform is a suite of services that cleverly work together, allowing your people to build custom apps, automate clunky processes, and analyse data without needing to write reams of code. It’s a perfect illustration of how low-code helps organisations tackle their own unique challenges, quickly and efficiently.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/2RzCbd5XgJg
Build Custom Apps with Power Apps
Leading the charge is Power Apps, a tool for building bespoke applications that connect directly to your business data. This isn’t about creating the next blockbuster for the App Store. It’s about solving specific, internal business headaches without the huge cost and time commitment of a traditional software project.
Picture a construction firm in Nottingham that needs a mobile app for on-site health and safety inspections. Instead of commissioning a lengthy development cycle, they could use Power Apps to build a simple, effective app in a fraction of the time. Surveyors can complete checklists, snap photos, and submit reports right from their phones, with the data instantly synced and available back at head office.
Or how about a manufacturer in Leicester struggling with a paper-based holiday request system? They could build a simple tool where staff submit requests, which then automatically routes to their line manager for approval. It’s all handled through a clean, easy-to-use interface. For a deeper dive into the possibilities, it’s worth exploring why you should build apps for your business on Microsoft Power Apps to see the full range of benefits.
The screenshot below from Microsoft gives you a sense of how all the pieces of the Power Platform—Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and more—fit together to create complete business solutions.
This integrated approach is what makes it so powerful. An app built in Power Apps can effortlessly kick off an automated workflow or feed data into a dynamic report, creating a truly seamless experience.
Automate Your Workflows with Power Automate
While Power Apps is for building the tools your team interacts with, Power Automate is the engine that runs silently in the background. Its entire job is to take on the repetitive, manual tasks that drain your team’s time and are often a source of human error.
Think of it like setting up a chain of digital dominoes. You just need to define a trigger—the first domino to fall—and Power Automate ensures the rest of the chain reaction happens automatically, every single time.
With Power Automate, you can get different applications that don’t normally talk to each other to work together, creating seamless workflows. This frees up your team to focus on high-value work instead of getting bogged down in tedious data entry.
Here’s a simple but incredibly useful example for a sales team in the East Midlands:
- Trigger: A new lead is added to your Dynamics 365 CRM system.
- Action 1: Power Automate instantly pings the relevant sales manager a notification in Microsoft Teams.
- Action 2: It then creates a follow-up task in that salesperson’s Microsoft To Do list, setting a due date for two days’ time.
- Action 3: Finally, it logs the new lead’s details in a SharePoint list for the marketing team to review.
This whole process is set up visually, just by connecting pre-built blocks. What used to be a series of manual steps that could easily be forgotten is now a fully automated, reliable workflow. It’s this powerful combination of custom app creation and smart automation that makes the Power Platform a game-changer for modern businesses.
Ready to see what low-code can do for your business operations? Phone 0845 855 0000 today or Send us a message to discuss your strategy.
Building a Successful Low Code Strategy
Jumping into a powerful new technology without a clear plan is a recipe for chaos. Simply buying a low code subscription isn’t a strategy; it’s a purchase. To really get the most out of it, you need a blueprint that encourages your team’s bright ideas while keeping your company data and systems secure. Ultimately, it’s about building a new, more agile way of working.
This shift has to start with good governance. A well-managed approach stops the uncontrolled spread of ‘shadow IT’—those apps people build on the side without official sign-off. Instead, it creates a sanctioned, secure environment where that creativity can be put to good use. This is the only way to scale low code responsibly and see a genuine return on your investment.
Establish a Centre of Excellence
A great first step is creating a Centre of Excellence (CoE). Don’t worry, this doesn’t need to be some large, formal department. It can start as a small, cross-functional team of IT pros and business experts who act as guides for your new community of citizen developers.
The CoE’s role is to:
- Set Best Practices: They define the ‘rules of the road’ for building apps, from consistent user interface design to how data should be handled.
- Provide Support and Training: The CoE mentors your citizen developers, helping them build high-quality, secure applications and get comfortable with the platform.
- Manage the Platform: This team looks after the low code environment, manages the licences, and keeps an eye on the health of all the apps being created.
- Review and Promote Apps: They can vet new applications before they are rolled out to the wider business, making sure they meet quality and security standards.
Think of it as a central hub that turns low code adoption from a free-for-all into an organised, strategic part of your business. It empowers your people while keeping essential oversight where it belongs.
Prioritise Security and Compliance
Speed is a major perk of low code development, but it can never come at the expense of security. With more people building applications, you need crystal-clear rules to protect sensitive business and customer information, especially to comply with UK data regulations like GDPR.
A robust low code strategy builds security in from the start. It involves setting clear permissions, managing data access, and ensuring every new app adheres to your organisation’s compliance standards.
Your strategy should map out exactly who can access what data, which connectors are approved for use, and how every application is tested for vulnerabilities before it goes live. This proactive stance means that as you speed up development, you aren’t accidentally opening up new security holes.
Low code is truly reshaping the UK software landscape. Projections suggest that by 2025, an incredible 70% of new applications will be built using low or no-code tools. This rapid shift makes having a structured security framework an absolute must. You can discover more insights about low code statistics and trends to get a sense of the scale of this change.
Ready to build a secure and effective low code strategy for your business?
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Ready to Get Started with Low-Code?
So, where do you begin? It all starts with a simple conversation about what you want to achieve. The first step is often the hardest, but it’s about pinpointing those nagging inefficiencies or exciting new ideas where low-code could make a real difference.
Whether you’re looking to automate a few clunky internal tasks or dreaming up a new customer-facing app, the potential is huge. We can help you map out a clear path forward, making sure your first low-code project is a guaranteed win that delivers real value right away. To get a feel for what’s possible, check out these business process automation examples and see how other organisations are already benefiting.
Let’s explore how you can give your team the tools they need to innovate faster and stay ahead of the curve.
Ready to see how low-code can reshape your business? Phone 0845 855 0000 today or Send us a message to start the conversation.