New research from Malt, Europe’s leading freelance management platform, has revealed a strong skill shift in favor of AI-related skills as well as low and no-code tools.
The demand for traditional software languages like Java (-32%), C++ (-25%) and PHP (-33%) has declined significantly, as companies have shifted their tech strategies in 2025. In contrast, the past year has seen a +1390% increase in n8n projects, a workflow automation tool that requires minimal coding.
This is according to the Malt Tech Trends 2026 report which draws insights from Europe’s largest independent tech community, analysing keyword searches and project briefs from more than 900,000 registered freelancers, including 250,000 tech experts, and more than 90,000 companies. The research garnered insights from across the European Union, United Kingdom, and Middle East.
Commenting on the findings, Benoit Guillon, Vice President of Engineering at Malt said: “There is a clear market shift towards low and no code tools, driven by a need to reduce risk, squeeze time to market, and test more. That is the promise of low code and no-code tools like n8n which is now leveling in project volume with Java.”
Other key findings from the report include:
- n8n projects analysis over the past year reveals a wide variety of use cases, including CRM/Marketing automation (35%), AI agent integration (25%), API connectors (15%) and data pipelines (15%). Expected benefits range from time savings (80% mention) to cost reduction (60%), scalability (50%) and data consistency (40%).
- Because of its open-source foundations with self-hosted options, flexibility and agility, n8n has become an SMB and startup favourite with 82% of demand driven by business under 50 employees.
- Demand for mobile developers significantly grew in 2025 (+20% all technology combined). In 2025, approximately 45% of projects on Malt were also cross-platform, up from 36% in 2024.
- Website creation and Content Management System (CMS) tools represent the category with the highest demand volume on Malt. WordPress remains the most popular tool, but its demand has significantly declined (-11%), and its market share is shrinking by more than 30%, while Webflow usage is growing rapidly (+39%).
Guillon continued: “The low-code & no-code market growth is now driven by the rapid adoption of workflow automation tools, the most famous examples being n8n, Make and Zapier. Since 2024, AI has given these tools their second act as they democratized LLM usage to non-experts. This explosive growth is indicative of the shift from being viewed as niche tools to mainstream automation and integration platforms in the space of a year.
“For those at the helm of these projects, the preference for low code often stems from its added flexibility, agility and simplicity. That isn’t to say that traditional skills will disappear completely, rather these solutions must now interoperate and integrate so that we benefit from the best of both worlds. With the evolution of no-code and vibe-coding tools, we will probably see more and more strategies with solid “as-code” foundations complemented by no and low-code solutions too.”
To read more about how Europe’s top independent talent is shaping the tech landscape, read the Malt Tech Trends 2026.