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Global study of 1,000 robotics developers uncovers UK developers’ challenges with evolving robotics regulations, concerns about security and scalability, and increasing focus on robotics software
Key Findings from the “Inside the Robot: Architecture Benchmark Report”:
QNX, a division of BlackBerry Limited, today released a new research study, the Inside the Robot: Architecture Benchmark Report, examining how robotics development is changing as systems become more software-driven, AI-enabled, and increasingly deployed alongside humans at work and in daily life. Based on a global survey of 1,000 developers, UK respondents stand out as the most optimistic about progress in robotics and the most confident in navigating rapidly changing regulations. Yet despite this confidence, many are still grappling with compliance challenges and harbour growing concerns around safety and security, highlighting a gap between perception and reality. A new episode of QNX’s Code the Future podcast featuring Omdia Chief Analyst Lian Jye Su explores the themes and results in more detail.
Software, not hardware, now considered to be the bottleneck to robotics innovation
The findings from the research make it clear that development of robotics today hinges less on new hardware and more on building systems that are predictable, secure, and capable of handling mixed levels of criticality. When asked about their biggest performance bottleneck, 33% of UK developers indicated software architecture and integration – more than two times as many who pointed to hardware (15%). Almost one-in-three UK developers think the pace of robotics innovation is slower than industry expectations, with 93% of these respondents pointing to technical complexity as the reason for the slower pace of development.
These UK developers expect software to only grow in importance over time (89%), with teams anticipating their biggest investments will be in AI-driven decision making (55%), cybersecurity (42%), operating systems and real-time control software (41%) in the next three to five years. Notably, UK developers place greater importance on the operating system as critical to robotic systems (53%) compared to the global average (40%), highlighting the growing strategic role of foundational software.
Friction as robot deployments are undercut by increasing security concerns and regulatory pressures
Development teams in the UK are already seeing real-world adoption of robots. More than four in five respondents in the UK (83%) say their systems are now deployed alongside humans. Among those not yet deployed alongside humans today, more than three quarters (81%) expect this to happen within three to five years, compared to just 67% globally.
As these robots are moving into less controlled environments, there are also higher expectations around reliability, safety and predictable behaviour. UK developers are also among the most confident globally in their systems’ ability to deliver this in practice, with 97% expressing confidence in consistent performance under real-world workloads. However, most teams (92%) continue to rely on software not designed for real?time or safety?critical use.
This friction is causing UK developers to navigate a growing tension between innovation and compliance. They are understandably more likely than their global peers to cite both cybersecurity and AI/machine learning regulations as major challenges, with 59% and 58% highlighting these issues respectively. UK respondents are also more likely than those in most other countries to cite regulatory compliance burdens (45%) and security vulnerabilities (51%) as key concerns for future robotics development.
These pressures are already having a tangible impact. More than two-thirds of UK respondents (69%) report project delays due to certification processes, affecting development timelines, costs and commercial risk. Cybersecurity standards (such as ISO/SAE 21434) and functional safety requirements (such as ISO 10218) are among the most difficult areas to navigate. And only 35% of respondents feel “very confident” in their ability to ensure safe, predictable decision-making in real-world environments, underlining the gap in current capabilities.
Persisting optimism and confidence in the future of robotics and physical AI
Despite such concerns, the UK is the most optimistic about the future of progress in the robotics industry at 93% positive compared to the 81% global average. Ambitions are also high, with 90% of UK respondents asserting that physical AI (AI-enabled robots that can perceive, reason and act autonomously in the physical world) is critical to their organisation’s robotics strategy over the next three to five years. The majority expect that software budgets will overwhelmingly shift toward AI or ML decision making (55%) and that AI capability growth will be the highest priority for robotics development (50%) over the next few years – the most picked options.
“Robotics teams are clearly pushing towards more intelligent, autonomous systems, but the data shows they are also running up against the very real limits of architectures that were never designed for this level of complexity or accountability,” said Jim Hirsch, Global VP of Sales, General Embedded Markets at QNX. “Developers consistently cite four core challenges: integration complexity, certification delays, functional safety risks in human?machine interaction and ensuring predictable behaviour when it matters most. The good news is that these are all solvable problems and by focusing on stronger software foundations, developers can set the stage for faster innovation and a new generation of safe, reliable and highly autonomous robots.”
QNX provides high-performance foundational software that helps simplify the most complex challenges in industries such as robotics, automotive, medical devices, industrial controls, commercial vehicles, rail and defence. QNX empowers organisations to unlock new possibilities in areas like high-performance computing at the edge, standards-based virtualisation technologies and cloud enablement. Trusted in the world’s most critical systems, QNX continues to lead across a range of sectors, including robotics and healthcare, where its technology is deployed by nine of the top ten medical device manufacturers.
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For more information, please contact:
QNX Software Systems
1001 Farrar Road
Ottawa
ON K2K
Canada
Tel: +1 613 591 0931
Web: qnx.com
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