How onboarding delays are limiting the impact of software development contractors

The use of contractors is vital in facilitating necessary software development projects for companies small and large. Development teams are forced to justify the cost of this additional support, meaning returning a clear return on this investment is crucial.

In banking, government and automotive industries – which are highly regulated - there are a wealth of additional security requirements, which are often coupled with a hugely fragmented technology stack.

As such, onboarding of third-party contractors staff and contractors has become unnecessarily complex and expensive, and can often cause weeks of delays, which is particularly problematic when these developers are on short-term, 3-6 month contracts.

Just four weeks of slow onboarding, with siloed systems and the need to constantly reconfigure machines, can cost enterprises as much as £11,000 per contractor. These delays are a huge wasted investment and are preventing contractors from excelling in the roles they’ve been hired to fill. Not only is this a source of frustration for companies, who can see the wasted resources and slower returns or delays on projects, but this can also frustrate contractors, who are keen to hit the ground running and maximize their output in order to complete work.

The hidden cost of onboarding delays

Onboarding delays represent a hidden, but often expensive additional cost for businesses. Rarely are they factored into the timelines of projects – creating significant pressure points for contractors as they battle to complete projects on time. Businesses are also paying salaries for little forward movement and may need to extend the period of time a contractor is hired for to ensure projects are seen through to their conclusion. For third-party contractors, it can be as much as 12-weeks before they actually start coding, making the onboarding processes as it stands hugely inefficient.

It's important that companies are both aware of this hidden cost and are actively exploring methods in which they can reduce onboarding time and lower the financial impact of a slow onboarding process. This requires a strong focus on developer experience, and creating the right environment which empowers developers to begin contributing to projects from day one. A stronger onboarding process can encourage up to 50% faster project completion overall.

Managing Developer Environments

On average, a developer could be brought in to work across 10-15 different projects at once. Without the right environment, each of these projects may require unique sets of tools, configurations and security measures, meaning switching between these projects can take hours.

Coder’s 2025 State of Development Environments report highlights that only 16% of organizations were using the same standardized tools across teams. For many organizations, new developer hires are often required to configure their own machines with the libraries and IDEs, and chase for licenses for the tools that they prefer.

Ensuring the correct set-up on each of these projects is a significant time burden and ultimately a net productivity loss – particularly crucial when talent has been brought on for a limited time period. In fact, getting this process wrong can cause high levels of developer attrition, with talent refusing to wait until onboarding has been completed before they contribute any code.

A managed, cloud-based workspace can help to reduce onboarding times from weeks to the same-day, with developers able to use familiar tools within the context of a standardized environment. With the right cloud development environment, new developers can gain immediate access to fully configured workspaces that are already integrated with company tooling.

This creates a dramatic reduction in overall onboarding time, and improves the morale of new hires who are able to make immediate contributions to projects. According to Gartner’s Software Engineering Survey for 2024, more than a third (36%) of engineering leaders have seen CDEs increase developer productivity in their organizations.

Industry specific challenges

Industries that have high levels of sensitivity – including governance, defense and finance – face a unique set of additional onboarding challenges. This is due to the heightened level of security protocols and the regulatory requirements they face in sorting and holding data, and the often disparate nature of employee location. Onboarding staff in a way that meets security requirements, and ensuring all tools used are approved for use – while facilitating cross-country and sometimes cross border work, can create a significant logistical challenge.

This highlights the importance of standardized developer environments – to ensure that staff can quickly be onboarded and satisfy the strict regulatory and security requirements necessary. The right managed environment allows teams to use their preferred tools, but within an environment that includes configuration guardrails for how infrastructure is provisioned, and source code is managed. This maximizes the balance between freedom for developers and the security needed in sensitive industries.

Conclusion

Fixing onboarding delays for contractors is a crucial step in maximizing the financial investment made for additional support. The existing onboarding process, whereby developers themselves are configuring devices, could create weeks of delays. By implementing standardized, cloud development environments, organizations can ensure that contractors are providing code on day one – improving productivity, reducing costs and ensuring employee engagement.

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