PUBLIC STUDY B2B Europe 2025

The evolving role of the software CTO

EY-Parthenon’s Software Strategy Group partnered with Potloc to explore how European software CTOs are expanding their influence and redefining their mandates across AI, cybersecurity, and product modernization.

Technology leadership is entering a new chapter.

Software companies are in the middle of a leadership evolution. The CTO role is expanding beyond technology to shape product, resilience, and growth. 

To identify what’s next for the modern technology leader, EY-Parthenon and Potloc surveyed over 350 CTOs from the UK, France, DACH, Benelux, Italy, the Nordics, Spain, and Portugal.

Sander van Weele

Partner at EY-Parthenon, Software Strategy Group

Charles Gouiran

Account executive at Potloc

Survey details.

  • 350

    European software CTOs surveyed

  • 7

    regional markets targeted

  • 14

    data quality controls employed

  • 22

    days of fieldwork

The Potloc advantage.

  • MapPinArea

    Reliable sampling reach.

    After a successful first wave, EY-Parthenon chose Potloc again to run the second wave, ensuring reach and consistency across European markets. The result: actionable results from 350 CTOs spanning company sizes, sectors, and technology maturities.

  • Gear

    Designed for better answers.

    Potloc’s experts helped refine and localize the survey. Every question was designed to balance breadth and depth — wide enough to capture market trends, precise enough to generate meaningful responses. The result was a dataset rich in nuance and ready for analysis.

  • Timer

    Faster, deeper analysis.

     With Potloc’s platform, EY-Parthenon could track responses as they came in, segment data instantly, and test early hypotheses without waiting for fieldwork to close. The ability to explore live data made it easier to spot trends, validate assumptions, and pull clear insights.

Key trends.

1

The expanding CTO mandate.

Key forces behind the shift in the CTO agenda.
Bar chart of forces reshaping the CTO role: cybersecurity risk 60%, faster product innovation 58%, product modernization 47%, further automation and AI 47%, talent recruitment 17%.

More than half of CTOs say their responsibilities now include product, resilience, and strategic growth — confirming that technology leadership is moving closer to the center of business decision-making.

2

Cybersecurity maturity is overstated and underinvested.

How CTOs rate their cybersecurity posture against peers.
Chart of self-assessed cyber posture: 17% significantly above peers, 65% slightly above, 15% on par — despite gaps in fundamental practices.

While most CTOs state they are ahead of the curve, nearly 40% still lack fundamental practices such as risk assessments — revealing a persistent gap between perceived and actual readiness.

3

AI as both baseline and differentiator.

Share of developers using AI tools when they are available.
Pie chart showing fewer than 40% of developers use AI tools even when available.

AI tools in development workflows drive efficiency gains of up to 40%, but fewer than 40% of developers currently use them. With AI now a baseline, the real advantage lies in defining high-impact use cases and building tailored models.

The support from Potloc’s experts on survey design and optimization ensured that the questions were both precise and engaging, which in turn drove high-quality responses. We used the Potloc platform extensively — it accelerated our speed to insights significantly. Having the data presented in an intuitive, visual format allowed us to quickly cut the results by segment and spot patterns that would have taken much longer to uncover manually.
Sander van Weele BW
Sander van Weele Partner at EY-Parthenon, Software Strategy Group
eyparthenon

Our team.

Charles Gouiran
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
charles.gouiran@potloc.com

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Cover of the EY-Parthenon x Potloc report Five Forces Redefining the CTO Mandate in Software Companies, based on 350 European software CTOs, 2025.
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