UK app development has grown into a substantial industry: supply-side industry value of roughly £28.3 billion (2024-25), spread across more than 14,500 businesses, with demand-side spend projected to climb from £14.2 billion to around £32.9 billion by 2030 — a compound annual growth rate north of 13%.
Why the gap between demand and supply growth matters
Demand for commissioned apps is growing faster than the agency market is scaling capacity. That’s consistent with what we see directly: 67% of UK SMEs now plan mobile app investment, and the buyer pool has widened well beyond consumer-app startups into healthcare, fintech, and B2B operators digitising processes that used to run on spreadsheets and email.
What it means for choosing a partner
A market this size and this fragmented — 14,500+ businesses, most of them small — means quality variance is wide. Average UK development costs now sit around £90,000 for a typical project, ranging from £20,000 for a simple app to £300,000+ for enterprise-grade builds. At that range, the difference between agencies isn’t really about who can write code; AI tooling has narrowed that gap. It’s about who can scope correctly, who understands your regulatory context, and who’s still around to support the product eighteen months after launch.
If you’re evaluating options in a crowded market, our services page covers what we build and how we scope projects, and custom software development goes into our approach in more detail. Get in touch if you want a straight assessment of what your project should cost.