MOJ, DWP, HMRC, Home Office still make up a big portion of responses.
There’s also a lot more individuals in departments across Government responding.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| MOJ | 17.1% | 22.7% |
| GDS | 11.8% | 18.2% |
| DWP | 14.5% | 12.1% |
| HMRC | 19.7% | 9.1% |
| Home Office | 15.8% | 9.1% |
| DIT | N/A | 3.0% |
| Cabinet Office | N/A | 3.0% |
| DfE | N/A | 3.0% |
| Office for National Statistics | N/A | 1.5% |
| DVSA | N/A | 1.5% |
| Met Office | N/A | 1.5% |
| NHS | N/A | 1.5% |
| DEFRA | N/A | 1.5% |
| DfE / ESFA | N/A | 1.5% |
| The Insolvency Service | N/A | 1.5% |
| Local authority | N/A | 1.5% |
| Environment Agency | 11.8% | 1.5% |
| NCA | N/A | 1.5% |
| HM Land Registry | N/A | 1.5% |
| Gambling Commission | N/A | 1.5% |
| Registers of Scotland | N/A | 1.5% |
| DVLA | 2.6% | N/A |
| Student Loans Company | 2.6% | N/A |
| Companies House | 3.9% | N/A |
This year we removed the ‘Other development’ category as it was too vague.
More people have selected ‘Backend development’ and ‘Full stack development’, this may be related to the wider industry too.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend development | 40.4% | 41.8% |
| Full stack development | 6.7% | 31.3% |
| Backend development | N/A | 10.4% |
| Design | 21.3% | 10.4% |
| Technical architect | N/A | 4.5% |
| Other | 5.6% | 1.5% |
| Content | 1.1% | N/A |
| Tech lead | 5.6% | N/A |
| Other development | 19.1% | N/A |
Node.js, Ruby on Rails, Python have largely remained the same, this year we see more people declare their frontend libraries with React appearing at 10.3% and Vue.js moving ahead of jQuery at 3.4%
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Node.js | 28.4% | 27.6% |
| Ruby on Rails | 16.7% | 17.2% |
| Python | 12.7% | 10.3% |
| React | N/A | 10.3% |
| Scala and Play | 16.7% | 9.2% |
| Java | 5.9% | 6.9% |
| Vue.js | N/A | 3.4% |
| PHP | N/A | 3.4% |
| jQuery | N/A | 2.3% |
| Riot | N/A | 1.1% |
| Razor / .NetCore | N/A | 1.1% |
| Microsoft Dynamics | N/A | 1.1% |
| Blade | N/A | 1.1% |
| Vanilla JS | N/A | 1.1% |
| Don't know | 2.9% | 1.1% |
| Dojo | N/A | 1.1% |
| .net | N/A | 1.1% |
| Other | 9.8% | N/A |
| Perl | 2.9% | N/A |
| Angular | 3.9% | N/A |
More people are using Nunjucks, this is likely due to the GOV.UK Design System adopting Nunjucks to provide examples.
Again we see frameworks like React and Vue.js enter the results.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Nunjucks | 15.1% | 22.6% |
| Jinja | 5.0% | 9.7% |
| ERB | 10.9% | 9.7% |
| React | N/A | 8.6% |
| Twirl | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Handlebars | 7.6% | 4.3% |
| Mustache | 16.0% | 4.3% |
| Thymeleaf | N/A | 3.2% |
| Vue.js | N/A | 3.2% |
| Slim | 4.2% | 3.2% |
| HAML | N/A | 2.2% |
| Twig | 0.8% | 2.2% |
| None | N/A | 2.2% |
| PHP | 1.7% | 2.2% |
| Jade | 1.7% | 2.2% |
| Django templates | 2.5% | 2.2% |
| Scala | N/A | 1.1% |
| Razor | N/A | 1.1% |
| JSP | N/A | 1.1% |
| Freemarker | 1.7% | 1.1% |
| Don't know | 4.2% | 1.1% |
| Blade | N/A | 1.1% |
| Haml | N/A | 1.1% |
| Marko | N/A | 1.1% |
| Hogan | 7.6% | 1.1% |
| Riot | N/A | 1.1% |
| Other | 10.9% | N/A |
| Angular | 1.7% | N/A |
Sass still has strong usage in 2018 but there is an introduction of CSS-in-JS libraries which have become more popular in 2018.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Sass | 78.7% | 84.1% |
| We don't use a pre-processor | 9.0% | 8.7% |
| Emotion | N/A | 2.9% |
| Less | 2.2% | 1.4% |
| styled-components | N/A | 1.4% |
| Don't know | 4.5% | 1.4% |
| Other | 5.6% | N/A |
A lot of people are opting out of following a CSS architecture, of those that do BEM is still popular again with CSS-in-JS joining the ranks.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| We don't follow a CSS architecture | 34.3% | 40.8% |
| BEM | 24.5% | 36.8% |
| Don't know | 25.5% | 7.9% |
| CSS-in-JS | N/A | 5.3% |
| ITCSS | 2.9% | 3.9% |
| OOCSS | 2.9% | 2.6% |
| Atomic | N/A | 1.3% |
| SMACCS | 1.0% | 1.3% |
| Other | 8.8% | N/A |
More people have their own design resources, this could be due to the rise in popularity of design systems in 2018.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 31.1% | 50.0% |
| No | 54.1% | 43.9% |
| In development | 6.6% | 6.1% |
| Other | 8.2% | N/A |
One of the aims of the GOV.UK Design System was to merge GOV.UK Frontend Toolkit, Elements and Template into one package to be used, so we’re happy to see a reduced usage of these deprecated libraries.
This year we also see people announce their own departmental resources, which have seen more investment.
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| GOV.UK Design System (GOV.UK Frontend) | N/A | 25.3% |
| GOV.UK Frontend Toolkit | 28.0% | 18.7% |
| GOV.UK Elements | 28.4% | 17.5% |
| GOV.UK Prototype Kit | 15.9% | 16.3% |
| GOV.UK Template | 25.0% | 11.4% |
| None | N/A | 5.4% |
| Planning to migrate to GOV.UK Design System (GOV.UK Frontend) | N/A | 1.2% |
| govuk-react | N/A | 1.8% |
| Other | 2.6% | N/A |
| Own | N/A | 0.6% |
| Assets Frontend | N/A | 0.6% |
| MOJ Pattern Library (an extension of the GOV.UK Design System) | N/A | 0.6% |
| HMCTS Design System (HMCTS Frontend) | N/A | 0.6% |
In 2016 we saw over 50% (“npm”, “package manager”, “gem”) of people using package managers such as npm, this year we see around the same results but people are announcing npm as their primary package manager.
Gulp has more usage but Webpack is a new introduction, which may tie in with the increased usage of frameworks like React.
We also feel for the people who responded with “Badly”!
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| npm | 19.4% | 43.1% |
| Manually | 27.8% | 12.1% |
| Gulp | 2.8% | 8.6% |
| We don't | N/A | 6.9% |
| Departmental resource | 6.9% | 6.9% |
| Gem | 15.3% | 6.9% |
| Webpack | N/A | 3.4% |
| Prototype kit | N/A | 3.4% |
| Badly | N/A | 3.4% |
| Package manager | 20.8% | 1.7% |
| Github | N/A | 1.7% |
| CDN | N/A | 1.7% |
| Jenkins | 1.4% | N/A |
| Git | 2.8% | N/A |
| From scratch | 2.8% | N/A |
More people are using npm to keep their dependencies up-to-date, a new addition is “Dependency notification service” why open an issue or pull request on your repository.
8.7% of people are “trying their best”, good luck!
| Name | Percentage (2016) | Percentage (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| npm | 17.9% | 39.1% |
| Manually | 25.0% | 26.1% |
| Dependency notification service | N/A | 13.0% |
| Trying our best | N/A | 8.7% |
| We don't | 17.9% | 4.3% |
| Github | N/A | 4.3% |
| RSS | N/A | 2.2% |
| When things break | N/A | 2.2% |
| Rarely | 1.8% | N/A |
| Watch for changes | 5.4% | N/A |
| Bundler | 12.5% | N/A |
| Periodic | 19.6% | N/A |
Question 11: Are there any specific improvements you'd like to see in the frontend resources offered by GDS?
See the results in detail for a better comparison
| Name | 2016 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|
| Content Delivery Network (CDN) for assets | Yes | Yes |
| more templating languages | Yes | Yes |
| better documentation | Yes | Yes |
| project scaffolds for different tech stacks | Yes | No |
| more examples | Yes | No |
| more components and patterns | Yes | No |
| standards | Yes | No |
| an improved Prototype Kit | Yes | No |
| accessibility | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| better code | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| versioned components | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| better support | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| a single package and site | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| a clear contribution model | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| better JavaScript | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| compiled assets including CSS | Yes | N/A (Done) |
| simpler tools for less technical people | No | Yes |
| authoring CSS rather than having to write more HTML | No | Yes |
| less reliance on polyfills | No | Yes |
| dont use BEM | No | Yes |
| tools to help port GOV.UK Frontend | No | Yes |
| use nunjucks extensions | No | Yes |
| ruby gems | No | Yes |
| adopt a form builder | No | Yes |