This year, over 64,000 developers told us how they learn and level up, which tools they’re using, and what they want.
Each year since 2011, Stack Overflow has asked developers about their favorite technologies, coding habits, and work preferences, as well as how they learn, share, and level up. This year represents the largest group of respondents in our history: 64,000 developers took our annual survey in January.
As the world’s largest and most trusted community of software developers, we run this survey and share these results to improve developers’ lives: We want to empower developers by providing them with rich information about themselves, their industry, and their peers. And we want to use this information to educate employers about who developers are and what they need.
We learn something new every time we run our survey. This year is no exception:
A common misconception about developers is that they've all been programming since childhood. In fact, we see a wide range of experience levels. Among professional developers, 11.3% got their first coding jobs within a year of first learning how to program. A further 36.9% learned to program between one and four years before beginning their careers as developers.
Only 13.1% of developers are actively looking for a job. But 75.2% of developers are interested in hearing about new job opportunities.
When we asked respondents what they valued most when considering a new job, 53.3% said remote options were a top priority. A majority of developers, 63.9%, reported working remotely at least one day a month, and 11.1% say they’re full-time remote or almost all the time.
A majority of developers said they were underpaid. Developers who work in government and non-profits feel the most underpaid, while those who work in finance feel the most overpaid.
Want to dive into the results yourself? In a few weeks, we’ll make the anonymised results of the survey available for download under the Open Database License (ODbL). We look forward to seeing what you find!
Each month, about 40 million people visit Stack Overflow to learn, share, and level up. We estimate that 16.8 million of these people are professional developers and university-level students.
Our estimate on professional developers comes from the things people read and do when they visit Stack Overflow. We collect data on user activity to help surface jobs we think you might find interesting and questions we think you can answer. You can download and clear this data at any time.
Compared to the rest of the world, the United States has a higher proportion of people who identify as full stack web developers, whereas Germany has a comparatively lower proportion. As for mobile developers, the U.S. and United Kingdom have proportionally more iOS developers and fewer Android developers than the rest of the world.
People other than full-time developers also write code as part of their jobs, and they come to Stack Overflow for help and community. This year, we gave additional occupation options to respondents who are not full-time developers, but who occasionally code as part of their work. These roles include analyst, data scientist, and educator.
A common misconception about developers is that they've all been programming since childhood. In fact, we see a wide range of experience levels. Among professional developers, one-eighth (12.5%) learned to code less than four years ago, and an additional one-eighth (13.3%) learned to code between four and six years ago. Due to the pervasiveness of online courses and coding bootcamps, adults with little to no programming experience can now more easily transition to a career as a developer.
Web and mobile developers have significantly less professional coding experience, on average, than developers in other technical disciplines such as systems administration and embedded programming. Across all developer kinds, the software industry acts as the primary incubator for new talent, but sees a relatively low proportion of more experienced developers. For example, 60% of mobile developers at software firms have fewer than five years of professional coding experience, compared to 45% of mobile developers in other industries.
Among professional developers, 11.3% got their first coding jobs within a year of first learning how to program. A further 36.9% learned to program between one and four years before beginning their careers as developers. Globally, developers in Southern Asia had the lowest average amount of prior coding experience when beginning their careers; those in continental Europe had the highest.
974 responses; among respondents who indicated they no longer program as part of their job
Respondents who indicated that they had worked as professional developers in the past, but now did something else for a living, were asked how long they had coded as part of their jobs.
We asked respondents for their gender identity. Specifically, we asked them to select each of the following options that apply to them:
Male
Female
Transgender
Non-binary, genderqueer, or gender non-conforming
A different identity (write-in option)
According to Quantcast, women account for 10% of Stack Overflow’s U.S. traffic. Similarly, 10% of survey respondents from the U.S. identify as women. In our survey last year, 6.6% of respondents from the U.S. identified as women.
Meanwhile, women account for 9% of Stack Overflow’s UK traffic, while 7.3% of survey respondents from the UK were women. Finally, women account for 8% of Stack Overflow’s traffic from both France and Germany, while 5.1% and 5.6% of respondents from those countries, respectively, identify as women.
We will publish additional analysis related to respondents’ gender identities in the coming weeks.
Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian
0.9%
33,033 responses; select all that apply
White or of European descent
76.2%
South Asian
8.2%
Hispanic or Latino/Latina
5.7%
East Asian
4.3%
Middle Eastern
3.4%
I prefer not to say
2.3%
Black or of African descent
2.3%
I don’t know
1.7%
Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian
0.9%
24,652 responses; select all that apply
White or of European descent
64.4%
South Asian
13.3%
East Asian
7.7%
Hispanic or Latino/Latina
5.3%
Middle Eastern
4.7%
I don’t know
3.8%
Black or of African descent
3.7%
I prefer not to say
3.2%
Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian
0.8%
4,097 responses; select all that apply
This was the first year we asked respondents for their ethnic identity. We asked them to select each option that applied.
We asked respondents this question to add an important dimension to what we can learn about developers. In addition, public policy researchers and employers frequently look to us for information on how they can reach out to and better understand underrepresented groups among developers.
We will publish additional analysis related to respondents’ ethnic identities in the coming weeks.
Similar to our question about ethnicity, this was the first year we asked respondents for their disability status. Of the 3.4% of respondents who identified as having a disability, we asked them to select each option that applied, and we included a write-in option. We know developers can experience many forms of disability. For this survey, we confined our list of standard options on this question to disabilities that require some physical accommodation by employers.
We will publish additional analysis related to respondents’ disability status in the coming weeks.
Some college/university study, no bachelor's degree
13.7%
A doctoral degree
5.9%
A professional degree
4.4%
Primary/elementary school
3.9%
I don't know/not sure
2.1%
I prefer not to answer
1.8%
No education
0.6%
34,938 responses
A bachelor’s degree
30.2%
A master’s degree
22.0%
High school
17.2%
Some college/university study, no bachelor's degree
13.6%
A doctoral degree
5.4%
A professional degree
4.3%
Primary/elementary school
3.9%
I don't know/not sure
1.6%
I prefer not to answer
1.4%
No education
0.5%
26,066 responses
A bachelor’s degree
26.0%
A master’s degree
20.5%
High school
16.6%
Some college/university study, no bachelor's degree
13.3%
A doctoral degree
6.5%
A professional degree
4.5%
I don't know/not sure
4.3%
Primary/elementary school
4.3%
I prefer not to answer
3.3%
No education
0.7%
4,338 responses
We asked respondents, “What is the highest level of education received by either of your parents?” Similar to ethnicity and disability status, this is the first year we asked this question. We asked this question in part because public policy researchers and some employers seek information about first-generation college students to improve their efforts to support them.
We will publish additional analysis on this in the coming weeks.
The dashed line shows the average ratio of men's to women's participation
While the sample as a whole skewed heavily male, women were more likely to be represented in some developer roles than others. They were proportionally more represented among data scientists, mobile and web developers, quality assurance engineers, and graphic designers. The dashed line shows the average ratio for all of these developer roles.
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
11.5%
Embedded applications/devices developer
9.7%
Other
8.7%
Data scientist
7.8%
Graphics programming
4.9%
Quality assurance engineer
3.5%
Machine learning specialist
3.5%
Graphic designer
3.3%
18,770 responses
Web developer
73.6%
Mobile developer
27.8%
Desktop applications developer
22.4%
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
11.7%
Database administrator
11.3%
DevOps specialist
8.5%
Data scientist
7.4%
Embedded applications/devices developer
7.2%
Systems administrator
7.0%
Other
6.6%
Graphic designer
3.8%
Machine learning specialist
3.8%
Quality assurance engineer
3.1%
Graphics programming
2.8%
2,009 responses
Web developer
80.9%
Desktop applications developer
29.0%
Mobile developer
27.8%
Database administrator
17.0%
Systems administrator
14.8%
DevOps specialist
11.5%
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
10.2%
Data scientist
9.6%
Embedded applications/devices developer
8.2%
Other
6.2%
Graphics programming
4.7%
Machine learning specialist
4.4%
Graphic designer
4.2%
Quality assurance engineer
4.0%
1,412 responses
Web developer
74.2%
Mobile developer
27.7%
Desktop applications developer
25.0%
Database administrator
12.9%
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
11.4%
DevOps specialist
10.9%
Systems administrator
10.4%
Data scientist
8.8%
Embedded applications/devices developer
7.7%
Other
5.4%
Machine learning specialist
4.8%
Graphics programming
4.5%
Graphic designer
3.9%
Quality assurance engineer
3.8%
1,063 responses
Respondents who identified as White or of European descent were less likely to report being a mobile developer than those who identified as South Asian, Hispanic or Latino/Latina, or East Asian. A higher proportion of respondents who identified as Hispanic or Latino/Latina selected “web developer” as an option compared to those who selected White or of European descent, South Asian, or East Asian.
Important note: We didn't receive enough responses from developers of some ethnicities to include them here with reliable percentages. However, we do see that many developers who identify as Black or of African descent work as web developers and mobile developers, and many developers with Middle Eastern ethnic backgrounds work as web developers and desktop applications developers. Developers who identified as Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian work as web developers at a high rate.
Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian
12.1
I prefer not to say
11.5
Hispanic or Latino/Latina
10.6
Middle Eastern
9.6
East Asian
9.2
Black or of African descent
8.8
I don’t know
8.3
South Asian
8.0
Mean of 33,004 responses
Between respondents who identified as men or women, nearly twice the number of women said they had been coding for less than a year. On average, respondents who identified as White or of European descent and those who identified as Pacific Islander or Indigenous Australian had the highest average number of years experience coding.
Some college/university study without earning a bachelor’s degree
15.8%
Bachelor’s degree
42.0%
Master’s degree
21.7%
Professional degree
1.4%
Doctoral degree
2.5%
I prefer not to answer
2.2%
51,392 responses
I never completed any formal education
0.7%
Primary/elementary school
0.6%
Secondary school
6.3%
Some college/university study without earning a bachelor’s degree
14.9%
Bachelor’s degree
47.9%
Master’s degree
24.9%
Professional degree
1.5%
Doctoral degree
2.2%
I prefer not to answer
1.1%
36,131 responses
Among current professional developers globally, 76.5% of respondents said they had a bachelor’s degree or higher, such as a Master’s degree or equivalent.
Computer engineering or electrical/electronics engineering
10.2%
Computer programming or Web development
9.1%
Information technology, networking, or system administration
5.0%
A natural science
4.4%
A non-computer-focused engineering discipline
4.2%
Mathematics or statistics
3.8%
Something else
2.5%
A humanities discipline
2.1%
A business discipline
2.1%
Management information systems
1.5%
Fine arts or performing arts
1.5%
A social science
1.5%
I never declared a major
1.4%
Psychology
0.5%
A health science
0.3%
42,841 responses; select all that apply
Computer science or software engineering
54.2%
Computer engineering or electrical/electronics engineering
10.0%
Computer programming or Web development
9.1%
Information technology, networking, or system administration
4.3%
A non-computer-focused engineering discipline
3.6%
A natural science
3.5%
Mathematics or statistics
3.4%
Something else
2.1%
A humanities discipline
1.9%
A business discipline
1.7%
Fine arts or performing arts
1.5%
Management information systems
1.4%
I never declared a major
1.3%
A social science
1.3%
Psychology
0.4%
A health science
0.2%
32,958 responses; select all that apply
Computer science or software engineering
48.3%
Computer programming or Web development
12.5%
Computer engineering or electrical/electronics engineering
10.2%
Information technology, networking, or system administration
6.8%
Something else
3.3%
A natural science
3.2%
A non-computer-focused engineering discipline
3.1%
Mathematics or statistics
2.8%
A business discipline
2.4%
A humanities discipline
1.6%
I never declared a major
1.6%
Fine arts or performing arts
1.2%
A social science
1.0%
Management information systems
1.0%
A health science
0.5%
Psychology
0.4%
3,945 responses; select all that apply
More than half (54.2%) of professional developers who had studied at a college or university said they had concentrated their studies on computer science or software engineering, and an additional quarter (24.9%) majored in a closely-related discipline such as computer programming, computer engineering, or information technology. The remaining 20.9% said they had majored in other fields such as business, the social sciences, natural sciences, non-computer engineering, or the arts.
Among current students who responded to the survey, 48.3% said they were majoring in computer science or software engineering, and 30.5% said they were majoring in closely-related fields. Finally, 21.2% said they were focusing on other fields.
Of current professional developers, 32% said their formal education was not very important or not important at all to their career success. This is not entirely surprising given that 90% of developers overall consider themselves at least somewhat self-taught: a formal degree is only one aspect of their education, and so much of their practical day-to-day work depends on their company’s individual tech stack decisions.
However, computer science majors and computer engineering majors were the most likely (49.4%) to say their formal education was important or very important.
Compared to computer science majors, respondents who majored in less theoretical computer-related disciplines (such as IT, web development, or computer programming) were more likely to say their formal educations were unimportant.
Developers love to learn: 90% say they are at least partially self-taught. Among current professional developers, 55.9% say they’ve taken an online course, and 53.4% say they’ve received on-the-job training.
I already had a job as a developer when I started the program
45.8%
I got a job as a developer before completing the program
9.7%
Immediately upon graduating
11.3%
Less than a month
6.0%
One to three months
8.8%
Four to six months
4.0%
Six months to a year
3.0%
Longer than a year
3.3%
I haven't gotten a job as a developer yet
8.1%
2,602 responses
Due to the high demand for professional developers, coding bootcamps have exploded in popularity in the past few years. Although commonly perceived as a way for non-developers to transition into a new career, we found that 45.8% of those who said they’d gone through a bootcamp were already developers when they started the program. This is likely because many developers decide at various parts in their career that they need to upgrade their skills or learn new technologies to stay relevant in the job market.
Coding isn’t just a career; it can be a passion. Among all developers, 75.0% code as a hobby; even among professional developers a similar proportion (73.9%) do so. Additionally, 32.7% of developers said they contribute to open source projects.
Want to learn to code but don’t know where to start? More developers say you should take an online course than any other method, followed by getting a book and working through the exercises.
As an important side note, we received great feedback on how we phrased this question, specifically the option, “Get a job as a QA tester and work your way into a developer role.” Although some developers start their careers as QA testers, the phrasing made it sound as if we saw QA as just a stepping stone, rather than a vital function and career option. QA professionals are our heroes (and QA engineers are 3.5% of our respondents this year!), and we apologize for not more carefully crafting our language.
36,935 responses; select all that apply. Shown as a percentage of the respondents who chose at least one language, framework, database, or platform.
JavaScript
66.7%
SQL
53.7%
Java
38.3%
C#
36.7%
Python
27.6%
PHP
27.2%
C++
19.3%
C
15.4%
TypeScript
11.3%
Ruby
9.5%
Objective-C
7.3%
Swift
6.9%
VB.NET
6.1%
Go
4.6%
Perl
4.1%
Scala
4.0%
Groovy
3.8%
Assembly
3.7%
CoffeeScript
3.7%
VBA
3.5%
R
3.1%
Matlab
2.9%
Visual Basic 6
2.5%
Lua
2.3%
Haskell
1.4%
27,612 responses; select all that apply. Shown as a percentage of the respondents who chose at least one language, framework, database, or platform.
For the fifth year in a row, JavaScript was the most commonly used programming language. And once again, SQL takes second place, and Java third. However, the use of Python overtook PHP for the first time in five years.
In the five years we've been collecting the Developer Survey, we've seen languages such as Python and Node.js grow in popularity, while the usage of languages like C# and C has been shrinking.
% of developers who are developing with the language or technology and have expressed interest in continuing to develop with it
Visual Basic 6
88.3%
VBA
80.4%
CoffeeScript
79.2%
VB.NET
77.2%
Matlab
72.3%
Objective-C
68.1%
Assembly
67.6%
Perl
65.9%
Lua
65.8%
Hack
64.5%
Groovy
62.9%
Common Lisp
62.6%
Dart
61.4%
Erlang
60.1%
PHP
58.6%
C
58.3%
Ruby
51.5%
R
50.1%
Java
49.5%
Julia
49.3%
C++
48.0%
SQL
46.6%
Haskell
45.5%
F#
43.8%
JavaScript
40.2%
% of developers who are developing with the language or technology but have not expressed interest in continuing to do so
Python
20.6%
JavaScript
18.6%
Go
13.5%
C++
11.8%
Java
11.7%
TypeScript
10.3%
C#
10.1%
Swift
8.7%
Ruby
7.0%
Rust
6.6%
SQL
6.5%
Scala
6.5%
C
6.4%
Haskell
5.4%
R
5.1%
F#
4.9%
PHP
4.1%
Assembly
3.8%
Elixir
3.6%
Objective-C
3.2%
Clojure
2.9%
Erlang
2.6%
CoffeeScript
2.2%
Lua
2.1%
Perl
1.5%
% of developers who are not developing with the language or technology but have expressed interest in developing with it
For the second year in a row, Rust was the most loved programming language. This means that proportionally, more developers wanted to continue working with it than any other language. Swift, last year's second most popular language, ranked as fourth.
For the second year in a row, Visual Basic (for 2017, Visual Basic 6, specifically) ranked as the most dreaded language. Most dreaded means that a high percentage of developers who are currently using the technology express no interest in continuing to do so.
Python shot to the most wanted language this year (as in, the language developers want to use this year more than any other), after ranking fourth last year.
% of developers who are developing with the language or technology and have expressed interest in continuing to develop with it
Oracle
63.1%
SQLite
52.8%
MySQL
50.4%
Cassandra
50.1%
SQL Server
45.8%
MongoDB
45.0%
PostgreSQL
39.2%
Redis
35.2%
% of developers who are developing with the language or technology but have not expressed interest in continuing to do so
MongoDB
20.8%
PostgreSQL
11.5%
Redis
10.6%
MySQL
8.5%
Cassandra
7.5%
SQLite
7.2%
SQL Server
4.6%
Oracle
3.8%
% of developers who are not developing with the language or technology but have expressed interest in developing with it
Redis was the most loved database, meaning that proportionally, more developers wanted to continue working with it than any other database. Meanwhile, Oracle is the most dreaded. Finally, more developers wanted to work with MongoDB this year than any other database.
% of developers who are developing with the language or technology and have expressed interest in continuing to develop with it
SharePoint
70.9%
Salesforce
70.6%
WordPress
64.5%
Windows Phone
60.8%
Mainframe
57.7%
Windows Desktop
44.0%
Arduino
40.8%
Android
38.4%
Microsoft Azure
38.3%
iOS
38.0%
Mac OS
37.7%
Raspberry Pi
34.8%
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
34.8%
Serverless
33.7%
Linux Desktop
30.4%
% of developers who are developing with the language or technology but have not expressed interest in continuing to do so
Android
20.6%
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
18.6%
Raspberry Pi
15.4%
iOS
13.2%
Linux Desktop
9.6%
Arduino
8.4%
Microsoft Azure
7.1%
Mac OS
6.6%
Serverless
4.0%
Windows Desktop
3.9%
Windows Phone
2.7%
WordPress
2.2%
Salesforce
1.1%
SharePoint
1.0%
Mainframe
0.7%
% of developers who are not developing with the language or technology but have expressed interest in developing with it
Linux Desktop was the most loved platform. Sharepoint was the most dreaded. And finally, more developers wanted to work with Android this year than any other platform.
JavaScript and SQL are the most popular languages across web developers, desktop developers, sysadmins/DevOps, and data scientists. Not surprisingly, R is far more popular with data scientists than other occupations.
Visual Studio was the most popular developer environment tool for web developers, desktop developers, and data scientists—but not for sysadmins/DevOps, who preferred Vim above all else. Notepad++ was popular across the board.
Globally, developers who use Clojure in their jobs have the highest average salary at $72,000. In the U.S., developers who use Go as well as developers who use Scala are highest paid with an average salary of $110,000. In the UK, it's TypeScript at $53,763, while in Germany, it's Java at the same. Finally, in France, it's Python at $42,151.
Technologies were clustered into several distinct "ecosystems" that tended to be used by the same developers. On the left of this chart we can see a large cluster representing web development (with JavaScript at the center) and one for Microsoft technologies (centered around C# and Visual Studio). On the right we see a constellation connecting Java, Android, and iOS. Other smaller correlated clusters included C/C++/Assembly, Raspberry Pi with Arduino, and languages like Python and R alongside language-specific IDEs.
Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
6.7%
Employed part-time
5.2%
Not employed, and not looking for work
4.7%
Not employed, but looking for work
4.6%
I prefer not to say
1.5%
Retired
0.5%
11,455 responses
Employed full-time
71.7%
Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
9.4%
Not employed, but looking for work
6.2%
Employed part-time
5.6%
Not employed, and not looking for work
5.3%
I prefer not to say
1.2%
Retired
0.7%
2,233 responses
Employed full-time
75.0%
Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
11.5%
Not employed, and not looking for work
5.3%
Not employed, but looking for work
3.3%
Employed part-time
2.7%
I prefer not to say
1.8%
Retired
0.4%
4,740 responses
Employed full-time
67.1%
Employed part-time
13.0%
Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
9.1%
Not employed, and not looking for work
5.1%
I prefer not to say
3.2%
Not employed, but looking for work
2.3%
Retired
0.2%
4,143 responses
Employed full-time
69.1%
Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
9.6%
Employed part-time
7.9%
Not employed, and not looking for work
6.3%
Not employed, but looking for work
4.6%
I prefer not to say
2.2%
Retired
0.3%
1,740 responses
Employed full-time
72.2%
Not employed, but looking for work
9.0%
Independent contractor, freelancer, or self-employed
7.1%
Not employed, and not looking for work
5.8%
I prefer not to say
3.3%
Employed part-time
2.5%
Retired
0.2%
5,197 responses
The United States has a somewhat lower proportion of freelance or independent contractor developers compared to the rest of the world, and Germany has an unusually high proportion of developers working part-time.
More developers work for software and internet/web companies than any other industry, but developers are also employed in diverse industries across the economy. Aside from software, the portion of developers in different industries varies by region: In the United States, for instance, healthcare and government employ a higher than average proportion of developers.
Developers work for a wide range of company sizes. On average, companies that employ developers in the United States tend to be somewhat larger than the rest of the world.
Privately-held limited company, not in startup mode
43.0%
Publicly-traded corporation
15.1%
I don't know
8.3%
Sole proprietorship or partnership, not in startup mode
7.3%
Government agency or public school/university
6.3%
Venture-funded startup
6.1%
I prefer not to answer
4.7%
Pre-series A startup
3.3%
Non-profit/non-governmental organization or private school/university
3.2%
State-owned company
1.7%
Something else
0.9%
38,823 responses
We often picture developers working at startups, but worldwide, only about 9% of developers work at startups. The majority of developers work at publicly-traded corporations or privately-held companies.
Developers tend to be satisfied with their career, and more so in general than with their current job. Overall, career satisfaction does not vary significantly by industry. However, current job satisfaction is significantly lower for developers working in finance, retail/wholesale, and logistics.
Average career satisfaction "jumps" to a slightly higher level after a developer has more than 4 years of experience.
Average of 29,841 responses on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates 'Not at all satisfied' and 5 indicates 'Very satisfied'
In general, developers are getting what they need to do their jobs. Developers were generally satisfied with their equipment including the number, size, and resolution of their monitors.
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
12.2%
Database administrator
12.0%
Web developer
11.4%
Systems administrator
11.4%
Desktop applications developer
11.3%
DevOps specialist
11.0%
Embedded applications/devices developer
10.7%
Graphics programming
10.4%
Other
9.7%
Mean of 24,024 responses
Among professional developers looking for work, a higher proportion of machine learning specialists and data scientists were looking for jobs compared to other occupation types. That said, only 14.3% and 13.2% respectively are actively looking.
A friend, family member, or former colleague told me
26.8%
I was contacted directly by someone at the company (e.g. internal recruiter)
17.9%
A general-purpose job board
13.9%
An external recruiter or headhunter
13.4%
I visited the company’s Web site and found a job listing there
8.5%
Some other way
7.7%
A career fair or on-campus recruiting event
7.7%
A tech-specific job board
4.0%
23,737 responses
Networking matters. The most common way developers found their most recent job was through a friend, family member, or former colleague who told them about it. The second most common, however, is by being contacted by someone at the company, such as a company recruiter.
I’m not actively looking, but I am open to new opportunities
1
I am not interested in new job opportunities
0
Median of 20,600 responses
Developers who are actively looking for a job spend a median of 5 hours per week on their job search. Those who are passively looking spend a median of 1 hour a week, and those who are not interested in new job opportunities spend a median of 0 hours.
The languages, frameworks, and other technologies I’d be working with
4.01
The amount of time I’d have to spend commuting
3.93
How projects are managed at the company or organization
3.85
The experience level called for in the job description
3.59
The specific department or team I’d be working on
3.58
The specific role or job title I’d be applying for
3.56
The financial performance or funding status of the company or organization
3.54
How widely used or impactful the product or service I’d be working on is
3.46
The opportunity to work from home/remotely
3.43
The industry that I’d be working in
3.41
The reputations of the company’s senior leaders
3.28
The diversity of the company or organization
3.01
Average of 22,692 responses on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates 'Not at all important' and 5 indicates 'Very important'
In general, developers prioritized opportunities for professional development over any other factor by a large margin. This could mean they're looking to advance up the ranks, but it could also be a sign of developers wanting to stay ahead of the game with their company's help. Software is one of the most rapidly changing industries in history; it takes considerable work to keep skills sharp.
Scores are on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates 'Not at all important' and 5 indicates 'Very important'
How much developers are paid, and how highly developers say they value pay in assessing jobs, changes from country to country. In countries like Mexico and Brazil, developers have lower salaries, but place a high importance on pay. In countries like Sweden and Switzerland, we see the lowest scores for developers using compensation to assess jobs.
Native American, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous Australian
69.2%
66.9%
South Asian
84.6%
73.9%
White or of European descent
80.7%
60.5%
Female
Male
23,173 responses; % who agreed or strongly agreed
Respondents who identify as women were more likely to agree or strongly agree that diversity in the workplace is important than respondents who identify as men. Men of White or of European descent were much less likely to agree or strongly agree that diversity is important than men of any other ethnicity.
More women than men agree that diversity in the workplace is important, but there is not a big effect related to years of experience. Between those with less experience and more experience, we see consistent results about who values diversity.
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$55,000
Data scientist
$53,763
Quality assurance engineer
$53,757
Embedded applications/devices developer
$52,500
Desktop applications developer
$50,538
Systems administrator
$50,000
Database administrator
$49,242
Web developer
$48,869
Graphics programming
$45,161
Mobile developer
$43,656
Graphic designer
$40,930
Median of 12,475 responses; USD
DevOps and machine learning specialists tend to command the largest salaries globally. Please see our Methodology section for information on how we converted local currencies used by respondents to U.S. dollars.
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$101,000
Data scientist
$100,000
DevOps specialist
$100,000
Embedded applications/devices developer
$100,000
Mobile developer
$95,000
Graphics programming
$93,000
Desktop applications developer
$92,000
Systems administrator
$90,000
Web developer
$90,000
Database administrator
$85,000
Quality assurance engineer
$85,000
Graphic designer
$70,000
Median of 3,630 responses; USD
Data scientist
$60,606
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$59,091
DevOps specialist
$55,492
Desktop applications developer
$53,030
Embedded applications/devices developer
$53,030
Graphic designer
$53,030
Graphics programming
$53,030
Machine learning specialist
$53,030
Mobile developer
$53,030
Web developer
$52,652
Database administrator
$50,970
Systems administrator
$49,242
Quality assurance engineer
$46,212
Median of 651 responses; USD
DevOps specialist
$56,250
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$53,906
Machine learning specialist
$52,500
Data scientist
$50,625
Quality assurance engineer
$50,000
Desktop applications developer
$48,813
Systems administrator
$48,750
Web developer
$48,750
Graphics programming
$48,060
Embedded applications/devices developer
$47,813
Database administrator
$46,250
Mobile developer
$46,250
Graphic designer
$40,000
Median of 1,422 responses; USD
Embedded applications/devices developer
$58,065
Machine learning specialist
$56,989
DevOps specialist
$55,914
Quality assurance engineer
$54,301
Data scientist
$53,763
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$53,763
Desktop applications developer
$51,613
Web developer
$51,613
Database administrator
$49,247
Mobile developer
$49,032
Systems administrator
$48,387
Graphics programming
$46,774
Graphic designer
$43,011
Median of 959 responses; USD
Quality assurance engineer
$53,763
Machine learning specialist
$48,387
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$45,161
DevOps specialist
$45,161
Data scientist
$41,667
Embedded applications/devices developer
$41,290
Graphics programming
$40,860
Mobile developer
$40,161
Web developer
$38,871
Desktop applications developer
$38,710
Database administrator
$38,441
Graphic designer
$38,441
Systems administrator
$38,172
Median of 465 responses; USD
Embedded applications/devices developer
$14,623
Graphics programming
$11,746
Data scientist
$10,057
Machine learning specialist
$8,809
Systems administrator
$8,809
DevOps specialist
$8,442
Graphic designer
$8,075
Desktop applications developer
$8,061
Quality assurance engineer
$7,782
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
$7,341
Web developer
$7,341
Database administrator
$7,194
Mobile developer
$5,873
Median of 804 responses; USD
Average top earners vary by geography. In Canada, for instance, data scientists were top earners, receiving an average of $60,606. Meanwhile in France, QA engineers received the highest average salary.
Developers using languages listed above the blue line in this chart such as Go, Rust, and Clojure are being paid more even given how much experience they have. Developers using languages below the blue line like PHP, however, are paid less even given years of experience. The size of the circles in this chart represents how many developers are using that language compared to the others.
A majority of developers said they were underpaid. Developers who work in government and non-profits feel the most underpaid, while those who work in finance feel the most overpaid.
Developers who use languages such as JavaScript, Perl, and Python reported feeling underpaid less often than developers who use languages such as Haskell and Matlab.
What's the best way to evaluate a developer? According to our respondents, it's most likely not lines of code or hours worked. Developers generally supported customer satisfaction and being on time and on budget as the best ways to evaluate the performance of a fellow developer.
Experience with specific tools (libraries, frameworks, etc.) used by the employer
3.53
Experience with specific project management tools & techniques
2.90
Previous companies worked at
2.83
Contributions to open source projects
2.81
Educational credentials (e.g. schools attended, specific field of study, grades earned)
2.77
Previous job titles held
2.73
Stack Overflow reputation
2.27
Average of 28,925 responses on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates 'Not at all important' and 5 indicates 'Very important'
What should employers look for when reviewing candidates? Respondents said communication skills and a track record of getting things done were the most important.
Agile and Scrum are popular methodologies for developers to keep their projects on track, and 42.8% of developers have used pair programming to improve their code quality and skill set.
A vast majority—65.6%—of developers pronounce 'GIF' with a hard 'g,' like gift. We're not sure how the 2% of developers who chose "some other way" say it, but we're very, very curious.
Although a majority of developers said it's okay to use a noisy keyboard in a shared office, the margin wasn't overwhelming. We expect this will continue to be a good, noisy debate.
Put on some ambient sounds (e.g. whale songs, forest sounds)
7.1%
Something else
3.5%
Put on a movie or TV show
3.2%
Turn on the news or talk radio
2.3%
36,457 responses
Most developers said they liked at least some music on while coding, but 24.2% want complete silence. This is perhaps another good reason to give developers offices.
Less than half the time, but at least one day each week
9.4%
A few days each month
35.1%
Never
31.8%
44,008 responses
When we asked respondents what they valued most when considering a new job, 53.3% said remote options were a top priority. 63.9% of developers reported working remotely at least one day a month, and 11.1% say they're full-time remote or almost all the time.
Less than half the time, but at least one day each week
7.12
A few days each month
7.08
About half the time
6.97
More than half, but not all, the time
6.95
It's complicated
6.84
Never
6.63
Mean of 40,325 responses; satisfaction on a 0-10 scale
There is a moderate correlation between remote work and job satisfaction. The highest job satisfaction ratings come from developers who work remote full time.
Developer with a statistics or mathematics background
11.7%
Other
11.5%
Embedded applications/devices developer
11.1%
Desktop applications developer
10.9%
Mean of 35,277 responses
Graphic designers and graphics programming professionals were the most common developer type that works remotely, whereas only 10.9% of desktop application developers said they worked remotely.
The majority of developers - 52.6% - check in code multiple times a day. This is consistent with our findings that 60.2% of developers believe in shipping quickly and iterating versus waiting to make it perfect the first time.
Mean of 24,831 responses; satisfaction on a 0-10 scale
We see a relationship between job satisfaction and pushing code into production frequently. (We still see this even after controlling for other effects, such as industry.) A happy developer is a developer who can ship.
I have a login for Stack Overflow, but haven’t created a CV or Developer Story
53.3%
I have created a CV or Developer Story on Stack Overflow
24.1%
I’ve visited Stack Overflow, but haven’t logged in/created an account
21.7%
I’d never heard of Stack Overflow before today
0.5%
I’ve heard of Stack Overflow, but have never visited
0.3%
36,932 responses
I have a login for Stack Overflow, but haven’t created a CV or Developer Story
52.4%
I have created a CV or Developer Story on Stack Overflow
27.9%
I’ve visited Stack Overflow, but haven’t logged in/created an account
19.2%
I’d never heard of Stack Overflow before today
0.3%
I’ve heard of Stack Overflow, but have never visited
0.2%
27,412 responses
About a quarter of our survey respondents use Stack Overflow, but don't have accounts. Of those who do have accounts, 31% have tried our Developer Story product.
You can create your Developer Story now and show off what you've built.
Copied a code example and pasted it into my codebase
44.5%
Written a new answer to someone else’s question
19.2%
Asked a new question
13.0%
Participated in community discussions on meta or in chat
5.7%
% who have done each item at least several times in three months; select all that apply
Nearly all respondents - 90% - find solutions that solve their coding problems here multiple times a month, and half of them find code snippets they can incorporate directly into their own work. That's only possible thanks to the many hundreds of thousands of developers who generously share their knowledge on Stack Overflow.
The answers and code examples I get on Stack Overflow are helpful
4.3
I don’t know what I’d do without Stack Overflow
3.4
I feel like a member of the Stack Overflow community
2.9
The ads on Stack Overflow are relevant to me
2.8
The moderation on Stack Overflow is unfair
2.2
The ads on Stack Overflow are distracting
2.2
The people who run Stack Overflow are just in it for the money
1.9
Average of 34,279 responses on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates 'Strongly disagree' and 5 indicates 'Strongly agree'
We hope you'll indulge us ending on a slightly personal note. Here at Stack Overflow, we come to work each day with an incredible sense of pride in our mission: Help all of the world's developers learn, share, and level up. So it's incredibly gratifying to hear that our community has helped so very many of you keep on writing the script for the future, and generally made the internet a better place for developers. If you've contributed in the past, take a moment to take pride in the difference you've made here. If you haven't had a chance yet, there's a simple way to pay it forward: Sign up now, so you're ready to jump in and help when you can. We don't make Stack Overflow great. You do.
This report is based on a survey of 64,227 software developers from 213 countries and territories around the world. Respondents were recruited primarily through channels "owned" by Stack Overflow, such as blog posts and banner ads on the site.
Of these, 36,601 (57% of respondents) completed the entire survey, and an additional 15,403 (24%) answered enough questions to be considered a "partial complete," for a total of 51,392 usable responses. These were distributed world-wide as follows:
Region
Usable Responses
North America
13,717
UK & Ireland
4,740
France
1,740
Germany, Austria, Switzerland
5,221
Rest of Europe
10,757
Asia, Pacific, & Australia
11,528
Africa
1,249
South & Central America
2,098
Other or prefer not to say
155
Total
51,392
The more complicated methodology stuff:
The survey fielded from January 12th to February 6th, consistent with last year.
The median response time for those who completed the entire survey was 26 minutes. Half of complete respondents spent between 19 and 42 minutes completing. Response time statistics are biased towards the top, because we allowed respondents to complete the survey at their leisure.
Four-fifths of responses came from a Stack Exchange site. The remaining 20% came from social media channels through which we, partner organizations, and members of the community promoted the survey. Accordingly, visitors who came to Stack Overflow multiple times during the field period were more likely to notice the advertisements for the survey and begin to take it. Such frequent visitors include those currently seeking a job, community moderators, those who ask questions or answer them, and other highly-engaged users. Additionally, respondents who supplied a Stack Exchange profile were awarded a “Census” badge as an inducement to complete the survey.
Category
# of Respondents
% of Respondents
Onsite Banners
26,547
52%
Onsite Blog
9,912
19%
Social Facebook
6,098
12%
Onsite Meta
4,778
9%
Social Misc
258
1%
Social Partners
526
1%
Social Reddit
1,596
3%
Social Twitter
1,677
3%
Total
51,392
100%
We treated respondents as usable if they completed at least the questions that ask them to describe their "developer kind." We excluded respondents who completed the entire survey in less than 10 minutes.
Salary data were obtained by first asking respondents for their day-to-day currency, and then asking them to write in either their current or expected post-graduation salary, depending on their circumstances.
We converted salaries given in the 38 most-frequently-used currencies to [dollars / Euros / pounds sterling] using the exchange rate that prevailed mid-way through the survey field period.
The question was optional; 32% of respondents who were asked for salary data provided it.
Extreme outliers were trimmed from the current salary data by removing any response greater than $200,000, corresponding to the top half percent of responses.
Many questions were only shown to respondents based on their previous answers. The primary "triggers" for whether questions were shown include self-description as a developer (Q1), country (Q3), employment status (Q17), job-seeking status (Q41), and Stack Overflow usage (Q91). The question numbers listed here correspond to the survey instrument, which we will release along with our downloadable, anonymized results in a few weeks.
Most of the questions in the middle of the survey (following Q36, and up until Q100) were organized into blocks. The blocks about technology usage and Stack Overflow usage were shown to all respondents. The remaining six blocks were each shown to two-thirds of respondents, with each respondent receiving four of the six blocks:
Developer attitudes (Q37 to Q39)
Job-seeking and compensation (Q41 to Q66)
Education and professional development (Q68 to Q72)
Software development practices (Q84 to Q87)
Hardware and other tools (Q89 and Q90)
Stack Overflow attitudes (Q97 to Q99)
Additionally, the first five blocks were shown in random order, in order to reduce any unforeseen ordering biases.
The dashed line shows the average ratio of men's to women's participation
Scores are on a 1-5 scale, where 1 indicates 'Not at all important' and 5 indicates 'Very important'
