The DevSecOps Evolution 2025 Report reveals a pivotal industry shift from Developer Experience (DevEx) to DevSecOps maturity, where secure code is synonymous with high-performance code. Based on insights from 1,500 global engineering and security leaders, the study benchmarks how organizations are progressing along four maturity stages — from reactive security to mature DevSecOps, with only 30% reaching full integration.
While 58% of organizations are still developer-experience-focused, most acknowledge that security must evolve into a developer-led discipline. Security is no longer the gatekeeper; instead, it is embedded within IDEs, CI/CD pipelines, and developer workflows. Yet, despite cultural progress, developers spend over 20 hours weekly on security tasks, signaling friction between productivity and protection.
The report identifies five key accelerators of DevSecOps maturity:
- Integrations — embedding AppSec into developer workflows
- Shared Measurements — aligning teams on unified success metrics
- Security Education — enabling developers to remediate faster
- Velocity Matching — syncing security pace with DevOps speed
- Automation — scaling AppSec without breaking delivery cycles
However, the study cautions that “automate everything” will fail without cultural trust, shared governance, and mutually agreed metrics. True DevSecOps success stems from collaboration, not configuration, and requires measurable harmony between speed, safety, and developer autonomy.
Looking to 2026 and beyond, Checkmarx predicts the rise of standardized DevSecOps metrics and automation frameworks, fostering security at scale without compromising velocity. Organizations that master this balance will define the next era of secure software engineering — where security equals performance.