Back in December, we worked with Nicholas Petroski of Promethean Research to design a survey to help us take a fresh look at our members and larger audience. (You can still take it if you missed it.)
After a few weeks, we collected just over 90 responses. Here is a summary of the results followed by a sampling of the free responses to questions about what’s exciting and concerning in the WordPress space today.
It is definitely a pivotal moment of high uncertainty with some people seeing the glass half-full while others see it half-empty. One person’s threat is another persons’s opportunity…. The most common concerns touch the health and viability of the WordPress community and ecosystem.
“Where do you live?”
Our survey included responses from people in 18 countries. Two-thirds of the respondents live in the United States while the next most-represented country was India with 7% of the respondents. Other than English, the most commonly spoken languages were German (5%), Hindi (5%), and Spanish (4%).
When asked about ethnicity, 78% of the respondents identified as White, 8% as Asian, 2% as Black or African American, 2% as Native American or Alaskan Native, and 10% indicated Other or didn’t wish to identify an ethnicity.
“What is your highest level of education?”
84% of the respondents held a bachelor’s degree or higher.
“Which of the following best describes your skill set?”
The community is primarily comprised of developers, managers, and designers. Half of the respondents fell into the Developer skills category, followed by Management (16%), Designer (12%), and Marketer (8%).
“How many years of experience do you have?”
The community is heavily weighted towards senior-level talent. Two-thirds of respondents were senior-level and another 27% were mid-level. We only had a single respondent who was entry-level. There was a pretty even split between focusing on products vs. services and 16% said they worked on both equally.
“Which of the following best describes your role?”
There was a pretty even split between respondents who identified as Owners, Employees, and Freelancers. Much less common were Executives, Managers, and Consultants.
“How many full-time employees work at your company?”
Almost half of the respondents indicated that there are 50 or more full-time employees at their company. Of those who own their companies, the majority (64%) fell in the 1-9 FTE range.
“What is your firm’s approximate revenue for 2021?”
A third of the respondents indicated that their company’s revenue fell in the $100-499K USD range while just under another third said theirs was $10M+. Of those who owned their companies, 56% fell in the $100-499K range and none fell into the $10M+ range.
“How is your team currently structured geographically?” and “How do you think your team will be structured geographically in 3-5 years?”
Almost 2/3rds of respondents are working remotely or fully distributed while another 37% are hybrid. The distribution didn’t change when asked about the expected structure 3-5 years from now.
What’s causing excitement — and concern?
The free response part of our community survey reveals many causes of positive excitement are also things that raise concern:
- Block Editor/FSE/Gutenberg
- Headless WP
- No code
- Improved communication flows
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Opportunities and Threats to Devs and Builders
The most common concerns all touch the health and viability of the WordPress community and ecosystem:
- Corporate consolidation, lack of diversity, loss of small players and easy entry into the ecosystem.
- Inability to attract and retain talent.
- The pandemic, culture, social and political divisions.
“What industry theme are you most excited about in the next 2-3 years?”
“…We’re transitioning away from hard-tech development toward Strategy, Message, and Marketing.”
“More enablement of custom solutions through no-code/low-code tech; make things more accessible, greater opportunities.”
“Web3 + Decentralization + WordPress”
“How do you think the industry might change over the next few years?”
“I think the WordPress project is at a make-or-break maturation point and the vast majority of it boils down to communication. I think the ability for WordPress to articulate next-generation Themes, provide more consistent and more transparent communication on timeline and roadmap are going to be why we succeed or why we fail.”
“A massive price increase of WordPress products is expected. Gutenberg forces developers to learn React. React developers cost 3-4x PHP developers. Using WordPress will become expensive, paying customers will decline as SaaS options will soon appear lucrative. AI in design and small developments will take over. A lot of freelancers will be out of business.”
“More distributed (OK, that’s hopeful). More and more client-side based coding, less server-side as the device environment continues to move more and more to portable. Along with that could be more focus on AR/VR.”
What is this information good for?
It’s great to be able to listen to our members and readers to learn who they are, how (and what) they’re doing, as well as the things they are most excited and concerned by. This helps us validate, alter, or add to our our own sense of editorial priorities — the topics to follow, the questions to ask.
Does any of this surprise you — what was or wasn’t included or represented? Let us know in the comments, or drop us a line. And you can still take this survey if you haven’t done so yet.
This will seem very obvious when you look at it, but a big reason your membership is 78% white is directly correlated to the fact that every face on your About page is also white. And most of the people you feature on your podcast are also white. You can be part of the solution, but you have to choose to do so first.
That may be how it looks to you, but it’s a little more complicated than what skin tones may show. Four of the core team are underrepresented in tech circles, but I’m not going to disagree with you. It’s a number 1 priority to be inclusive in our membership, and diversifying the people authoring and appearing in things we publish is a close second.