This article summarises the findings of the “Testing Trends in 2018: A Survey of Development and Testing Professionals” report, published by Sauce Labs, Inc. in early March 2018. The research was conducted by Dimensional Research with over 1,000 development and testing professionals across a wide range of company sizes, roles, industries, and geographies. Original coverage appeared on jaxenter.com.
Overview: Five Key Testing Trends for 2018
The survey identified five headline trends shaping development and testing practices in 2018:
- Trend 1: Testing spans more browser types, with an increasing focus on only the most recent versions.
- Trend 2: A mix of real devices and simulators is becoming the norm for mobile testing.
- Trend 3: The value of automated testing is well established and broadly recognised.
- Trend 4: Agile and DevOps adoption continues to grow, but bugs are not being fixed any faster.
- Trend 5: The desire to deploy even more quickly appears to be levelling off.
Agile Adoption: Broad but Uneven
Agile methodology has become near-universal among software development organisations. According to the 2015 edition of the survey, 82% of respondents said their organisation had adopted agile. By 2018, that figure had grown to 91%.
However, depth of adoption tells a more nuanced story. The survey found that agile adoption is inversely proportional to company size — larger organisations tend to adopt it more slowly and less completely. As the report notes, “any transformation typically takes longer at a large organisation, and agile is no exception.”
Continuous Integration: Widely Practised, Continuous Testing Still Catching Up
The survey found that the overwhelming majority of respondents work in organisations that practise Continuous Integration (CI). The report highlights that as CI adoption accelerates, continuous testing must be treated as an integral part of the CI pipeline — not an afterthought. In the survey’s words: “as more companies adopt CI chains to increase the speed and quality of releasing code as well as to find bugs in the software development process itself, it will be extremely critical to include continuous testing in these conversations.”
DevOps Adoption: Growing, but Still Early for Most Organisations
DevOps, a more recent trend than agile, was first tracked in this survey series in 2017. The 2018 findings show meaningful progress, but full enterprise-wide adoption remains rare:
- In 2017, only 10% of respondents reported that their organisation had fully embraced DevOps company-wide.
- By 2018, that number had grown to 17%.
- The largest groups in the survey reported that they had either just started with DevOps or had a few teams fully immersed in its practices.
“Teams are adapting to move faster, and a rising adoption of DevOps and a commitment to automated testing reflects how modern methodologies are becoming more and more critical to successful application development.”
Diane Hagglund, Principal Researcher, Dimensional Research
Main Challenges Identified
1. Bug-Fixing Speed Has Not Improved
Perhaps the most critical finding in the report is an alarming lack of progress in how quickly bugs are fixed. Despite widespread agile and DevOps adoption, defect resolution speed has not kept pace. The survey warns that “debugging code quickly remains a barrier to reaping the full benefits of agile and DevOps.” Teams moving faster through development and deployment pipelines cannot fully capitalise on that speed if bug remediation remains slow.
2. Automated Testing Is Not Yet the Default
While the value of automated testing is widely understood and management is typically supportive, the survey found that automation has not yet become the default mode of testing for most teams. The gap between endorsement and execution remains a real obstacle to scaling quality assurance in fast-moving environments.
3. Testing Complexity Continues to Grow
The breadth of what testers must cover is expanding continuously. As the survey puts it, “testers now need to consider multiple platforms, devices, browsers, and versions of operating systems.” This fragmentation makes thorough manual testing impractical and reinforces the case for robust, scalable automated testing strategies.
Takeaways for DevOps and Testing Teams
The 2018 Sauce Labs survey paints a picture of an industry in genuine transition. Agile and DevOps adoption are moving in the right direction, and the business case for automated testing is clearly understood. But significant gaps remain:
- CI pipelines need continuous testing baked in from the start, not bolted on afterwards.
- Bug-fixing speed must improve for agile and DevOps to deliver their full value — faster deployment without faster defect resolution creates its own risks.
- Organisations need to move beyond management buy-in for automation and create the conditions — tooling, skills, and processes — for automated testing to become standard practice.
- Cross-platform and cross-browser test coverage requires a deliberate strategy, not ad-hoc expansion.
For teams looking to mature their testing practice, this survey serves as a useful benchmark: it shows where the industry stands and, more importantly, where the obstacles to faster, higher-quality software delivery still lie.