UK Public Sector GitHub Observatory
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WCSCourses / Code

15 languages, 320.2 MB of source, and what the live estate is written in today.

Language figures come from GitHub's own per-repository byte counts, which measure source rather than a single headline label. File counts and repository sizes come from the mirrors themselves. The two tell different stories, and the difference is the point.

The codebase

15
languages in use
320.2 MB of source
13.2k
files at HEAD
across every analysed repository
0 B
on disk as mirrors
full history, every branch and tag
2.3 GB
largest repository
Human_Gut_Microbiome_Metagenomics_2026

What stands out

One archived repository holds 13% of all the bytes.

Human_Gut_Microbiome_Metagenomics_2026 is 2.3 GB of git - a 2013 static snapshot of www.gov.uk, not source code. It single-handedly makes HTML the largest language by volume (71% of all source bytes). Any size or language statistic that does not exclude it is measuring an archive, not a codebase.

Sizes here are GitHub's reported figures.

This organisation was harvested with blobless partial clones, which fetch every commit and file path but not file contents, so there is no local size to measure against. Checked elsewhere in this dataset against 1,526 fully mirrored repositories, GitHub's reported size is accurate to within about six percent.

Ruby is the house language, but its share is falling.

Ruby is the primary language of 0% of archived repositories but only 0% of live ones. Python, Go, TypeScript and HCL have taken the difference - the signature of a shift from monolithic Rails publishing apps toward data pipelines, infrastructure-as-code and platform tooling.

Most repositories are small; a handful are enormous.

9% of repositories are under a megabyte of git data. The estate is not a monolith - it is a very long tail of small services, gems and prototypes around a few large publishing applications.

Languages, two ways

By volume of source

Bytes of code. Dominated by archived static HTML.

HTMLHTML: 227.0 MB227.0 MBJupyter NotebookJupyter Notebook: 86.3 MB86.3 MBRoffRoff: 5.1 MB5.1 MBTeXTeX: 792.3 kB792.3 kBRR: 414.0 kB414.0 kBPythonPython: 240.1 kB240.1 kBShellShell: 128.5 kB128.5 kBJavaScriptJavaScript: 104.6 kB104.6 kBCSSCSS: 32.3 kB32.3 kBPerlPerl: 18.1 kB18.1 kBSCSSSCSS: 16.4 kB16.4 kBGnuplotGnuplot: 4.9 kB4.9 kBDockerfileDockerfile: 3.9 kB3.9 kBMakefileMakefile: 1.1 kB1.1 kB

By number of repositories

How many repositories name each language as their primary one. A better guide to what engineers actually work in.

HTMLHTML: 3232Jupyter NotebookJupyter Notebook: 2727ShellShell: 2727RR: 2323PythonPython: 1515CSSCSS: 99SCSSSCSS: 77RoffRoff: 66JavaScriptJavaScript: 44TeXTeX: 22PerlPerl: 22GnuplotGnuplot: 22MakefileMakefile: 22DockerfileDockerfile: 11

Live estate versus archive

The same language ranking, split by whether the repository is still active. The shift is the clearest signal of technical direction in the whole dataset.

Active repositories

HTMLHTML: 1313Jupyter NotebookJupyter Notebook: 1212ShellShell: 33RR: 33RoffRoff: 33PythonPython: 11TeXTeX: 11SCSSSCSS: 11

Archived repositories

HTMLHTML: 1111Jupyter NotebookJupyter Notebook: 1212ShellShell: 66RR: 33RoffRoff: 11PythonPython: 22TeXTeX: 11SCSSSCSS: 00

Scale

Repository size distribution

Git data per repository, log-ish buckets.

5339.826.513.20< 10 kB: 0< 10 kB< 100 kB: 5< 100 kB< 1 MB: 4< 1 MB< 10 MB: 7< 10 MB< 100 MB: 34< 100 MB100 MB +: 53100 MB +

Commits against files

Each circle is a repository, sized by number of distinct authors. Both axes are logarithmic. The diagonal band is the normal relationship between codebase size and churn; outliers above it are long-lived apps with heavy iteration, below it are dumps and imports.

676207.563.719.56.029.444.5209.9990.0.github: 25 commits, 2 files, 4 authorsACORN-ClinAMR: 145 commits, 68 files, 4 authorsACORN_ClinAMR_Lab: 141 commits, 121 files, 7 authorsAMR-Africa-24: 120 commits, 59 files, 8 authorsAMR-Asia-23: 53 commits, 21 files, 5 authorsAMR-Bio-Africa-2022: 67 commits, 28 files, 5 authorsAMR_2025: 278 commits, 373 files, 10 authorsAMR_2026: 300 commits, 484 files, 12 authorsAMR_Bacterial_Pathogens: 32 commits, 341 files, 4 authorsAfrican_Genomic_Diversity: 6 commits, 7 files, 2 authorsAssociation_Studies: 99 commits, 44 files, 7 authorsAssociation_Studies_2023: 70 commits, 36 files, 6 authorsAssociation_Studies_2024: 64 commits, 45 files, 7 authorsAssociation_Studies_2025: 85 commits, 45 files, 5 authorsBacterial_Genomic_Surveillance_2026: 125 commits, 417 files, 9 authorsBacterial_Meningitis_Africa_2026: 8 commits, 69 files, 2 authorsCOG-Train_Resources: 447 commits, 565 files, 3 authorsCRISPR: 157 commits, 71 files, 9 authorsCRISPR_Informatics_2024: 120 commits, 71 files, 9 authorsCRISPR_informatics_2025: 236 commits, 123 files, 9 authorsCancer_Genome_Analysis: 69 commits, 91 files, 10 authorsCancer_Genome_Analysis_2023: 95 commits, 87 files, 11 authorsCancer_Genome_Analysis_2025: 99 commits, 90 files, 11 authorsCancer_Genomic_Epidemiology_2026: 43 commits, 68 files, 6 authorsClinicalGenomeASIA-HGA23: 65 commits, 42 files, 4 authorsCompSysBio2022: 75 commits, 76 files, 9 authorsCompSysBio24: 44 commits, 94 files, 6 authorsComp_Sys_Bio: 17 commits, 96 files, 2 authorsComp_Sys_Bio2025: 80 commits, 135 files, 11 authorsFungal23: 61 commits, 20 files, 5 authorsFungal_Pathogen_Genomics: 46 commits, 55 files, 8 authorsFungal_Pathogen_Genomics_2025: 55 commits, 55 files, 8 authorsGCM24: 46 commits, 105 files, 5 authorsGCM_2025: 54 commits, 226 files, 7 authorsGCV23: 50 commits, 132 files, 6 authorsGCV24: 63 commits, 162 files, 10 authorsGCV_2025: 143 commits, 159 files, 11 authorsGenEpiLAC2023: 371 commits, 232 files, 9 authorsGenEpiLAC2024: 216 commits, 338 files, 11 authorsGenEpiLAC2025: 169 commits, 355 files, 13 authorsGenEpi_Bacterial_Pathogen: 27 commits, 331 files, 4 authorsGenome-Sequence-Analysis-Standardised-Resources: 74 commits, 990 files, 3 authorsGenome_Academy_Programme: 50 commits, 85 files, 4 authorsGenomics_and_Clinical_Microbiology: 24 commits, 227 files, 3 authorsGenomics_and_Clinical_Virology: 40 commits, 159 files, 4 authorsHelminth_Bioinformatics: 11 commits, 201 files, 4 authorsHelminth_Bioinformatics_2023: 676 commits, 207 files, 17 authorsHelminth_Bioinformatics_2025: 390 commits, 408 files, 12 authorsHelminths_2021: 394 commits, 151 files, 7 authorsHumanGenEpi: 296 commits, 97 files, 8 authorsHuman_Gut_Microbiome_Metagenomics_2026: 571 commits, 186 files, 11 authorsK-mer_Biodiversity_Genomics_2025: 68 commits, 62 files, 9 authorsKidneyGen_Africa_2026: 32 commits, 127 files, 3 authorsLSHTM_ParasiteGenomics_2020: 121 commits, 146 files, 4 authorsLow_Input_Epigenomics: 54 commits, 62 files, 10 authorsMAVE_2025: 64 commits, 141 files, 11 authorsMolAppAfrica_2023: 48 commits, 95 files, 6 authorsMolecular_Approaches_Clinical_Microbiology: 87 commits, 165 files, 8 authorsMolecular_Approaches_Clinical_Microbiology_2024: 81 commits, 164 files, 8 authorsMolecular_Approaches_Clinical_Microbiology_2025: 74 commits, 172 files, 6 authorsMonogenic_Disease_AfSHG_2022: 42 commits, 27 files, 4 authorsNGSBio_Hinx_2023: 78 commits, 32 files, 1 authorsNGS_23: 47 commits, 23 files, 2 authorsNGS_Bio_Chile_23: 65 commits, 44 files, 5 authorsNGS_Bioinformatics: 100 commits, 46 files, 6 authorsNGS_Bioinformatics_2024: 89 commits, 263 files, 5 authorsNGS_Bioinformatics_2025: 112 commits, 45 files, 6 authorsOrganoids23: 10 commits, 4 files, 1 authorsPGCF: 22 commits, 6 files, 2 authorsPRS_2023: 366 commits, 88 files, 10 authorsPRS_2024: 261 commits, 102 files, 9 authorsPRS_2025: 124 commits, 145 files, 14 authorsPolygenic_Risk_Scores: 15 commits, 147 files, 4 authorsPrecourses_DataRepo: 28 commits, 40 files, 4 authorsProtozoan_Parasite_Database_Resources_2022: 90 commits, 33 files, 6 authorsRNATrans_23: 23 commits, 50 files, 3 authorsSAGESA-AMR-Genomics-Network: 67 commits, 54 files, 5 authorsSARS-COV-2_B4B: 140 commits, 37 files, 8 authorsScalable_Genomics_and_Pangenomics_2026: 8 commits, 14 files, 2 authorsSingleCell_23: 42 commits, 4 files, 4 authorsSingle_Cell_Community: 17 commits, 6 files, 3 authorsSingle_Cell_Genomics: 73 commits, 15 files, 13 authorsSingle_Cell_Genomics_2024: 44 commits, 14 files, 6 authorsSingle_Cell_Genomics_2025: 72 commits, 7 files, 9 authorsSingle_Cell_Genomics_ImmuneSys_24: 83 commits, 46 files, 13 authorsT3connectResources: 31 commits, 161 files, 5 authorsTemplate_Course_Repo: 52 commits, 14 files, 5 authorsTraining_Leadership_Africa_2026: 7 commits, 14 files, 2 authorsViralBioinfAsia2022: 211 commits, 222 files, 11 authorsViralBioinfLAC2022: 161 commits, 367 files, 8 authorsViral_Genomics_and_Bioinfo: 246 commits, 260 files, 5 authorsWCS_ACORN_Clinical_AMR: 19 commits, 186 files, 3 authorsWCS_Informatics_Guides: 27 commits, 30 files, 3 authorsWWPG_2021: 204 commits, 205 files, 5 authorsWWPG_2022: 83 commits, 223 files, 9 authorsYDMP: 103 commits, 23 files, 3 authorscancer_genome_analysis_africa: 137 commits, 126 files, 9 authorsformat_convert: 12 commits, 6 files, 1 authorsgenomeacademy: 182 commits, 86 files, 5 authorsindex: 78 commits, 22 files, 4 authorswcs_resources: 12 commits, 42 files, 1 authorsfiles at HEAD (log)commits (log)

The shape of a repository

Directory layout is the cheapest reliable signal of what a repository actually is. app/ with config/ and spec/ is a Rails application; src/ with test/ is Java or Node. Counted by how many repositories contain each top-level directory at HEAD.

Most common top-level directories

course_datacourse_data: 2626seminar_slides_2025seminar_slides_2025: 2323course_data_2025course_data_2025: 2121course_modules_2025course_modules_2025: 2121modulesmodules: 1515ModulesModules: 1515imagesimages: 88course_modules_2026course_modules_2026: 88seminar_slides_2026seminar_slides_2026: 88course_data_2026course_data_2026: 88presentationspresentations: 77course_data_2024course_data_2024: 55_site_site: 44docsdocs: 44_freeze_freeze: 44manualsmanuals: 44modules_2024modules_2024: 33ManualsManuals: 33

Most common file extensions

By total file count across the estate.

.png.png: 5.1k5.1k.pdf.pdf: 1.6k1.6k.md.md: 1.4k1.4k.fasta.fasta: 446446.txt.txt: 347347.fa.fa: 334334.gz.gz: 297297.html.html: 291291.qmd.qmd: 218218.fas.fas: 184184.ipynb.ipynb: 155155.gff.gff: 142142.csv.csv: 123123.pptx.pptx: 107107.jpg.jpg: 6666.yml.yml: 6666

The twenty largest repositories

RepositoryLanguageGit size CommitsFilesStatus
Human_Gut_Microbiome_Metagenomics_2026-2.3 GB571186active
MAVE_2025Jupyter Notebook1.7 GB64141active
Genome-Sequence-Analysis-Standardised-ResourcesTeX504.7 MB74990active
K-mer_Biodiversity_Genomics_2025-492.7 MB6862archived
HumanGenEpiR458.6 MB29697active
AMR_2026HTML405.4 MB300484active
GenEpiLAC2025HTML392.9 MB169355active
GCV23Python362.9 MB50132archived
GenEpiLAC2024HTML348.2 MB216338archived
Low_Input_Epigenomics-336.4 MB5462active
Bacterial_Genomic_Surveillance_2026HTML335.7 MB125417active
Fungal_Pathogen_Genomics_2025-332.4 MB5555archived
AMR_2025HTML330.1 MB278373archived
GenEpiLAC2023HTML329.1 MB371232archived
Fungal_Pathogen_Genomics-275.4 MB4655active
COG-Train_ResourcesHTML273.7 MB447565active
Genome_Academy_Programme-256.8 MB5085active
AMR_Bacterial_PathogensHTML239.5 MB32341active
CRISPR_informatics_2025Jupyter Notebook239.4 MB236123active
Cancer_Genome_Analysis_2025Roff235.7 MB9990archived