What is Continuous Delivery? — UK Software Development Guide
Direct Answer
Continuous Delivery (CD) is a software development practice where code changes are automatically built, tested, and prepared for release to a production environment. In Continuous Delivery, every change that passes the automated test suite is deployable to production at any time — but the actual deployment to production requires a manual approval step. This contrasts with Continuous Deployment, where deployments to production are fully automated.
Continuous-delivery in the UK
Continuous Delivery is the standard for UK regulated software. Most UK FinTech, HealthTech, and GovTech teams use Continuous Delivery (not Continuous Deployment) because: FCA change management requirements expect a human approval step before production changes; NHS DSP Toolkit expects documented change management processes; and GDS Service Standard expects teams to be able to deploy changes quickly — but with appropriate controls. ClickMasters implements Continuous Delivery with a manual approval gate to production on all client projects.
Related Glossary Terms
UK GDPR
UK GDPR explained for UK software developers and business owners. UK GDPR (UK General Data Protection Regulation) is the post-Brexit version of EU GDPR, retained into UK law via the Euro... UK context, examples, and related services.
Cyber Essentials
Cyber Essentials explained for UK software developers and business owners. Cyber Essentials is a UK government-backed cybersecurity certification scheme developed by NCSC (National Cyber Security... UK context, examples, and related services.
DEVOPS
DevOps explained for UK software developers and business owners. DevOps is a set of practices, principles, and culture that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) t... UK context, examples, and related services.
Penetration-testing
Penetration Testing explained for UK software developers. Penetration testing (pen testing) is a simulated cyber attack against a software system, network, or application to disc... UK context and related services.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes explained for UK software developers. Kubernetes (commonly abbreviated as K8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deploymen... UK context and related services.
Docker
Docker explained for UK software developers. Docker is a platform that packages software and its dependencies into standardised units called containers. A Docker con...
Get Expert Advice on Continuous-delivery
Speak with our UK software development experts about Continuous-delivery. Free consultation, transparent pricing, no obligation.