2020 Coding Bootcamp Market Size Study
Written By Liz Eggleston
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Overview
Course Report is pleased to present our seventh annual Market Sizing Report, another in-depth, empirical study that takes stock of the coding bootcamp industry each year. Course Report polled every full-time, in-person US/Canadian bootcamp with courses in web and mobile development, gathering statistics on 2019 graduates and projected 2020 graduation rates.
This year marks the 8th anniversary for the coding bootcamp industry, and the number of coding bootcamp graduates continues to grow since the first bootcamps launched in 2012. Coding bootcamps are a $350 million industry and will graduate ~25,000 developers in 2020.
Key Findings
Coding bootcamps graduated 24,975 students in 2020 and due to COVID-19, have taught almost students almost entirely online. Course Report found:
- In 2020, the coding bootcamp market will grow by 39%, to an estimated 24,975 graduates in 2020, up from 18,027 in 2019.
- As a result of COVID-19, Online coding bootcamps are growing even more quickly than in-person bootcamps; 15,619 (of the total 24,975 students) will graduate from full-time, online coding bootcamps this year.
- 40 bootcamps work with partners on corporate training; this year, these 40 bootcamps expect to teach an additional 25,162 students via 493 corporate training partners (growth of 23% since 2019).
- As a point of comparison, we estimate that there were 93,427 undergraduate computer science graduates from accredited US universities in 2018.*
- In 2020, there are 97 full-time bootcamps teaching both online and in-person.
- Average tuition price of qualifying in-person and online courses is $14,142, with an average program length of 17.3 weeks.
- We estimate that tuition revenue from qualifying schools will be $349,426,408 in 2020 (not including corporate training revenue). Trend Alert: 39 bootcamps offer Deferred Tuition or Income Sharing Agreements in 2020.
- This year, Full Stack JavaScript continues to be the most common teaching language, used in 50% of Web Development courses.
*We estimated undergraduate CS graduates by using the 2018 Taulbee Study, published by the CRA. The Taulbee Study is a survey of PhD-granting departments, released annually in May.
Results
Market Size: 2020 Graduates
After surveying school representatives from qualifying coding bootcamps, Course Report estimates that coding bootcamps will educate 50,137 graduates in 2020 – this includes in-person coding bootcamps, online coding bootcamps, and corporate training.
| Self-Reported Graduates | |
|---|---|
| 2020 in-person graduates (projected) | 9,356 |
| 2020 online bootcamp graduates | 15,619 |
| 2020 corporate training graduates | 25,162 |
| Total 2020 graduates | 50,137 |
Market Size: Year over Year
The coding bootcamp market continues to grow year over year. Since 2013, the industry has grown 1047% from 2,178 graduates in 2013 to 24,975 graduates in 2020.
Due to COVID-19, the mode of delivery (online vs in-person) shifted in 2020. In-person coding bootcamps swiftly transitioned to delivering live remote instruction, so you'll notice that the number of online graduates in 2020 sharply increased by 306%, while the number of in-person graduates fell by 34%.
| Year | Online | In-Person | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 graduates (actual) | n/a | 2,178 | 2,178 |
| 2014 graduates (actual) | n/a | 6,740 | 6,740 |
| 2015 graduates (actual) | n/a | 10,333 | 10,333 |
| 2016 graduates (actual) | n/a | 15,077 | 15,077 |
| 2017 graduates (actual) | 677 | 16,190 | 16,867 |
| 2018 graduates (actual) | 2,022 | 13,407 | 15,429 |
| 2019 graduates (actual) | 3,849 | 14,178 | 18,027 |
| 2020 graduates (projected) | 15,619 | 9,356 | 24,975 |
| Estimated growth rate (2019-2020) | 306% | -34% | 39% |
| Industry growth rate since 2013 | +1047% |
Market Size: In-Person vs Online
| Self-Reported Graduates | |
|---|---|
| 2019 graduates (actual) | 3,849 |
| 2020 graduates (projected) | 15,619 |
| Estimated growth rate (2019-2020) | 306% |
Closed Schools
This year's report accounts for 8 schools that have closed or were consolidated/acquired (see more in Participating Schools).
Teaching Languages
Web development coding bootcamps choose teaching languages like Ruby on Rails, Full-Stack JavaScript, .NET/C#, Java, Python, or PHP. Analyzing the Course Report database of individual courses, we find that in 2020, Full-Stack JavaScript has maintained its position as the primary teaching language. 50% of courses reported Full-Stack JavaScript as the primary programming language (Chart 1a). Not only are schools new to the market choosing JavaScript, but established bootcamps are also migrating their curricula to emphasize JavaScript.
Chart 1a: Top Full-Stack Web Development Teaching Languages by Courses
Mobile Development coding bootcamps have historically been taught using Java (Android), Objective-C (iOS), or Swift (iOS). In 2020, 55% of Mobile Development bootcamps teach iOS with Swift (Chart 1b), marking a shift from Objective-C to Swift.
Chart 1b: Top Mobile Development Teaching Languages by Courses
This year’s market sizing report includes bootcamps that provide a coding-specific curriculum with a focus on Full-Stack Web Development, Mobile Development, or Front-End Web Development. Of these three career tracks, Chart 1c shows the continued popularity of Full-Stack Web Development – 90% of coding bootcamp grads learn Full-Stack Web Development (Chart 1c).
Chart 1c: Top Career Tracks by Graduates
Comparison to 2019 Study
Accuracy
Our 2019 Market Sizing Study projected the 2019 market size of in-person + online coding bootcamp graduates to be 23,043 graduates. Our 2020 study finds that the actual market size in 2019 for in-person + online graduates was 18,027 graduates. Thus, coding bootcamps overestimated their 2019 growth by 24%.
Impact of COVID-19 on Bootcamps
In March 2020, coding bootcamps reacted to stay-at-home orders quickly by transitioning to remote learning. 84% of bootcamps reported that they moved entirely online during the COVID-19 pandemic. 12% of schools reported that they were already online. Only 4% of schools reported that they did not move entirely online during COVID-19 (they either paused enrollment or maintained a hybrid classroom).
As a result, we saw a complete shift in market size and growth rate from in-person to online.
For the 2020 report, we asked bootcamps about the impact that COVID-19 had on six key areas: demand, acceptance rate, attrition, job placement, length of program, and ISA/Deferred tuition usage.
| Impact of COVID-19 on Bootcamps | Higher | No Change | Lower |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demand for a bootcamp | 47% | 27% | 26% |
| Acceptance Rate | 14% | 71% | 15% |
| Attrition | 34% | 54% | 12% |
| Success in Job Placement | 5% | 35% | 59% |
| Length of Program | 8% | 89% | 3% |
| Students Using ISA/Deferred Tuition | 19% | 75% | 5% |
- Most bootcamps (47%) said demand for their bootcamp increased.
- Most bootcamps (71%) said their acceptance rate did not change.
- Most bootcamps (54%) said their bootcamp saw no change to attrition.
- Most bootcamps (59%) said job placement rates declined due to COVID-19.
- Most bootcamps (89%) said length of their program stayed the same.
- 19% of bootcamps said that usage of ISAs or deferred tuition increased in 2020.
Corporate Training Market Size
We find that coding bootcamps continue to put more resources into training new developers through Corporate Training partnerships. In 2020, 40 bootcamps report that they have corporate training partnerships. Tables 6 & 7 show the growth of this category.
| # graduates | |
|---|---|
| 2019 graduates | 20,432 |
| 2020 graduates | 25,162 |
| Growth Rate | 23% |
| # partners | |
|---|---|
| 2019 partners | 349 |
| 2020 partners | 493 |
| Growth Rate | 41% |
Bootcamps are training students from a wide variety of industries. Of the 14 industries company partners work with, the majority (24%) of corporate training students currently work in Financial Services.
| Industry | # Partners | % |
|---|---|---|
| Financial Services | 38 | 24% |
| Healthcare | 19 | 12% |
| Education | 17 | 11% |
| Retail | 16 | 10% |
| Professional Services (Law, Consulting, etc.) | 12 | 8% |
| Data Infrastructure, Telecom | 11 | 7% |
| Media, Creative Industries | 10 | 6% |
| Transport, Logistics | 8 | 5% |
| Industrials (Manufacturing, Construction, etc.) | 7 | 4% |
| Life Sciences | 6 | 4% |
| Energy, Utilities | 5 | 3% |
| Public Service, Social Service | 5 | 3% |
| Agriculture, Forestry, Mining | 1 | 1% |
| Hospitality, Food, Leisure Travel | 2 | 1% |
Tuition
Tuition ranges from $3,500 to $30,000 for an in-person course, with an average tuition of $14,142. Courses range from 6 to 52 weeks with an average of 17.3 weeks, but most courses are in the 12-week range. Our study focuses on full-time programs, where students typically commit at least 40 hours per week, between classroom and programming time.
| Tuition | % |
|---|---|
| Free | 3% |
| Less than $5,000 | 4% |
| $5000 - $9,999 | 16% |
| $10,000 - $14,999 | 42% |
| Greater than $15,000 | 36% |
| Schools offering Deferred Tuition | 7 |
| Schools offering Income Sharing Agreement | 23 |
Based on our estimate of 24,975 bootcamp graduates in 2020, we estimate tuition revenue at $349,426,408 in 2020, excluding rebates and scholarships.
Trend: Alternative Tuition Models
In 2020, 30 schools offer alternative tuition options like deferred tuition, income-sharing agreements, or employer-sponsorship.
- 7 schools offer deferred tuition (students pay back a fixed tuition amount in installments): App Academy, Hackbright Academy, LearningFuze, Nashville Software School, Rithm School, Springboard, The Grace Hopper Program, Epicodus.
- 23 schools offer income sharing agreements (students pay the school a percentage of their salary for a period of time): BrainStation, Burlington Code Academy, Flatiron School, Galvanize, Hack Reactor, Tech Elevator, Kenzie Academy, Lambda School, Holberton School, General Assembly, Launch School, Microverse, Pursuit, Thinkful, DigitalCrafts, Ironhack, CodeBoxx, Formation, CodeCrew Code School, Academy Pittsburgh, Byte Academy, devCodeCamp, HackerYou.
- 2 schools offer an employer-sponsorship model: Ada Developers Academy and Zip Code Wilmington.
Participating Schools
9 bootcamps are not included in the 2020 study which were included in 2019, for a variety of reasons:
- RED Academy, Arkansas Coding Academy, Big Sky Code Academy, Cleveland Codes, Helio Training, Horizons School of Technology, Inventive Academy, and Origin Code Academy are closed.
- Note: Buildschool is now Formation.
Missing from 2020 Study:
- Several schools were non-responsive: Actualize, Array School of Technology and Design, Bottega, Byte Academy, Code Stack Academy, CodeCore Bootcamp, CodeCrew Code School, JRS Coding School, Techtonic Academy, and theClubhou.se Code Bootcamp. To estimate graduate numbers for these schools, we applied the industry growth rate if the school participated in previous years' reports. Otherwise, those schools are simply not represented in this report. While other market sizing methodologies may estimate graduation numbers using LinkedIn, we don't find scraping LinkedIn data reliable.
- Holberton School refused to participate in the 2020 report (in TechCrunch, Holberton has stated that they graduated 500 students in 2019.
Methodology
In our seventh annual Course Report Survey, we surveyed a total of 97 coding schools commonly referred to as “bootcamps” or “accelerated learning programs.” Due to COVID-19, most bootcamps taught online during the period of this report. 98% of online programs were responsive and 82% of in-person programs were responsive in 2020. The surveys were sent to school representatives and graduation figures are self-reported by the respondents.
Criteria – In-Person. To qualify for inclusion in the survey, a school must (a) offer full-time, in-person instruction of 40 or more hours of classroom time per week, (b) not be administered by an accredited college or university, (c) provide coding-specific curriculum with a focus on Full-Stack Web Development, Mobile Development, or Front-End Web Development (a separate report will be released for schools specializing in product development, data science, design, marketing, or security), and (d) have campuses in the United States or Canada. Many schools offer courses at multiple campuses across a wide range of curriculums. Respondents were asked to only report on courses meeting the above criteria (full-time, in-person, non-accredited, programming-specific, United States/Canada).
Criteria – Online. To qualify for inclusion in the survey, a school must (a) offer full-time, synchronous, online instruction of 40 or more hours of classroom time per week, (b) not be administered by an accredited college or university, (c) provide coding-specific curriculum with a focus on Full-Stack Web Development, Mobile Development, or Front-End Web Development and (d) be instructor-led.
2020 Forecast. All participants reported the number of students who graduated in 2020. All participants also provided estimates of their expected, 2020 graduate total.
Course Analysis. In addition to survey responses, we utilized the Course Report database of individual courses to analyze all courses (used in Table 5 and Chart 1) from the 97 qualifying schools. To qualify for our sample, the course needed to meet all of the above criteria and have a start date in 2020.
About Course Report. Course Report, founded in 2013 by Liz Eggleston and Adam Lovallo, operates https://www.coursereport.com/, which helps potential students find and research coding bootcamp programs. Course Report offers a directory of schools, course schedules, reviews and interviews with teachers, founders, students, and alumni.
Written by
Liz Eggleston, CEO and Editor of Course Report
Liz Eggleston is co-founder of Course Report, the most complete resource for students choosing a coding bootcamp. Liz has dedicated her career to empowering passionate career changers to break into tech, providing valuable insights and guidance in the rapidly evolving field of tech education.