UiPath predicts billion dollar growth for RPA in lead up to 2025

UiPath, the enterprise automation software company, has released new research from IDC that examines the contributions of UiPath robotic process automation (RPA) to the economy at large.

The UiPath-commissioned IDC thought leadership whitepaper, titled The Economic Impact of UiPath Robotic Process Automation, states that the economic benefits expected by the use of RPA software by UiPath customers will grow from $7 billion worldwide in 2021 to $55 billion in 2025.

According to the researchers, part of this growth is due to the net-new jobs UiPath is creating. IDC forecasts that by 2025, 73 million new jobs will be created from the use of UiPath RPA.

IDC report co-author and program vice president of intelligent process automation research, Maureen Fleming, says, "Only 7% of digitally enabled task workers have been impacted by the use of RPA.

"At this study's projected rate of adoption, task workers impacted will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 70% from 2020-2025, accounting for 10% of task workers impacted. RPA is not even to the knee of the curve of adoption.

"Results of the study show that RPA is touching millions of dollars of global business revenue, creating thousands of jobs, and opening billions of dollars in opportunities to ecosystem partners.

While RPA automates manual work, economic growth driven by emerging markets creates new jobs, according to the report.

IDC estimates that two jobs are gained for every job lost to RPA, and based on how RPA advances, the ratio could change over time to four jobs gained for every job lost.

As companies continue to prioritise digital transformation efforts, they are increasingly upskilling their employees on RPA to unlock the productivity and innovation potential afforded by automation, IDC states.

According to the report, of the UiPath survey respondents: 68% of upskilled workers had higher salaries than before; 57% of upskilled workers had higher roles in their enterprises than before; and 50% of new labour added as a result of RPA came from new hires, and 50% from upskilled workers.

On this trend, UiPath senior vice president of learning Tom Clancy says, "Automation unlocks workers productivity, and, more importantly, frees them to focus on meaningful work that is creative, collaborative, and strategic.

"Like previous new technologies, RPA and AI will create new job opportunities. They already are. And that's why it's critical that companies provide training for and access to automation and other digital technologies to create more fulfilled and energised employees.

The benefits of UiPath RPA are also delivered by the company's ecosystem of more than 4,700 partners that offer additional products and services to develop skills and support customer deployments.

This RPA support can be everything from network connections or cloud storage to strategic business consulting, human resource organisational assessments, or support for setting up RPA centres of excellence, the company states.

IDC predicts that the use of UiPath and its partner ecosystem will generate $5 billion this year and $16.4 billion by the end of 2025.

IDC also estimates that UiPath and its partner ecosystem will employ more than 40,000 by the end of 2025 and generate $52.1 billion in revenue opportunity between 2021 and 2025.

UiPath chief revenue officer Thomas Hansen says, "The UiPath partner ecosystem extends the power of our leading automation platform to companies of all sizes, across industries, and helps make customer success possible.

"As UiPath grows, so do our partners and we are committed to providing our expanding partner ecosystem with the tools and support needed to empower all workers to be successful in the jobs of the future.