Poor software quality costs 8 in 10 firms between almost £400K and £4million annually – with testing gaps a major contributor
UK manufacturers are facing rising risks of costly software failures according to the 2025 Quality Transformation Report from Tricentis. Six in 10 say they are at risk of major outages in the next year as growing pressure to deliver digital solutions faster exposes quality assurance gaps.
For UK manufacturers, the financial toll is amongst the highest worldwide, second only to the US. Over half (53%) say poor software quality costs them between £390K and £773K annually, while almost one-third (30%) estimate that costs exceed £773K.
The damage goes beyond lost revenue, including customer turnover (37%), spiraling technical debt and maintenance costs (35%), and more frequent security breaches or compliance failures (29%). Together, these risks place manufacturing among the hardest-hit of UK industries, behind only energy/utilities and financial services.
With nearly half (42%) of UK manufacturers prioritising faster software development and deployment to meet market and productivity demands, the research suggests quality is falling behind. Key challenges include:
- Time pressure: 35% cite accelerated timelines as their biggest barrier to maintaining software quality
- Team misalignment: Nearly a quarter (23%) point to poor communication between development and IT teams.
- Leadership gaps: A fifth (20%) blame unclear directives from senior management.
As a result, software testing often is deprioritised or is run with alarming gaps, leading to increased risk of defects, security vulnerabilities, and costly failures in production.
Nearly three quarters (72%) of UK manufacturers admit to releasing untested code, with almost half (48%) saying it happens unintentionally. More than four in five (81%) have had to delay software releases due to lack of confidence in test coverage, and one in five (20%) admit that they don’t know what to test at all.
These issues highlight why testing is such a critical step in digital delivery, and the research shows that many manufacturers are now looking to AI to address these gaps – but not without reservations:
- 95% plan to expand AI use in software quality assurance over the next year.
- All respondents (100%) believe that autonomous testing will transform QA, with top expected benefits including better software quality overall (31%) and faster releases (30%).
- 80% are excited about AI agent automation, particularly for repetitive tasks to free teams for higher-value work.
- 66% are very confident in AI making autonomous software release decisions.
- But only 58% strongly agree they have sufficient guardrails in place, revealing a trust gap between ambition and risk management.
“With manufacturing now deeply dependent on software to power automated and digitised operations, manufacturers can’t afford to treat testing as a final checkpoint. The cost of failure has never been higher,” said Andrew Power, Head of UKI at Tricentis. “While confidence in AI and automation is growing, lasting transformation only happens when quality is built in from design to deployment. That is the only way to cut risk, speed up delivery, and protect reputation.”
The Quality Transformation Report is based on a global survey of over 2,700 CIOs, VPs of engineering, QA leads, and DevOps practitioners across ten countries and five major industry sectors. This includes 539 respondents from the manufacturing sector globally, with 139 based in the UK.
Tricentis provides a full suite of AI-powered software testing solutions that address critical aspects of the software delivery process for enterprise organisations. It is trusted by some of the world’s largest companies, including 75% of the FTSE 100, and brands such as Vodafone and Allianz, to protect critical software systems. The full Tricentis 2025 Quality Transformation Report is available to download here.
