Programming Languages: Global Salaries and Job Satisfaction

Introduction

Speaking from personal experience, the programming languages I use on a daily basis play a huge role in whether or not I enjoy what I’m working on. Luckily, work and academics have exposed me to programming languages that I not only enjoy utilizing, but that are also powerful, ubiquitous, and in demand. (I’m sure many people feel this way about Python. Me too).

Driven by my experiences, my curiosity led me to Stack Overflow’s 2020 Developer Survey data. Using this data, I took a look at the relationships between job satisfaction, salary, and programming languages developers work with/want to learn. More specifically, I wanted to find answers to:

• Globally, what are the most common programming languages developers work with?
• What are the salaries and like for these programming languages, and how are they related to job satisfaction?
• What are the most desired programming languages in terms of what developers want to continue to learn in 2021?
• Is there a correlation between 2020 salaries and the languages developers want to learn in 2021?

Globally, what are the most common programming languages developers work with?

The plot above shows that javascript and CSS are the most commonly worked with languages (for countries with less respondents there were ties). Javascript and HTML/CSS are at the top of the list. This is no surprise because they provide the basic structure and formatting for websites and websites are everywhere.

It is important to note though, that most languages are used in congruence with one another. For example, Python Flask apps use HTML and Python, and PHP handles the server-side operations for websites. Unfortunately, no data was available for Antarctica.

What are the salaries and like for these programming languages, and how are they related to job satisfaction?

It usually follows that the more niche a developer’s job is, the more niche the programming language. Roles that involve extensive specialized training usually pay better and lend themselves to the use of less conventional programming languages. For example, Julia, which has the highest average salary, is usually used by specialized Data Scientists and AI Engineers.

Salaries also depend on an overall market. iPhone app development, which is very lucrative, involves programming in Objective-C, which also ranks highly.

One would expect that the higher the salary, the more one would be satisfied with their job. The survey question for job satisfaction asked for answers to be given in a range from “very-dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”. In the plot below, I grouped job satisfaction responses by programming languages.

Interestingly, the percentage of responses for each language all seem to follow the same pattern, with most developers choosing the “very-satisfied” and “slightly satisfied” responses. Since participants are limited to five response options, it’s difficult to discern job satisfaction. For example, some may be more “very-satisfied” than others with their job.

It does make sense, if higher salary entails higher job satisfaction, that Julia has the highest proportion of of “very-satisfied” responses, though.

What are the most desired programming languages in terms of what developers want to continue to learn in 2021?

Looking at another world plot, but for languages developers want to learn in 2021, we can see a huge difference between the languages developers currently work with! Specifically, Python is at the top of the list for many countries, which makes sense — it’s an extremely versatile language.

Another interesting note is that developers want to branch out to other languages, like Swift, Kotlin, and Go, which are all relatively new programming languages.

To underscore this paradigm shift, here’s a plot of the percentage change in languages developers work with and want to learn in 2021. Julia, Rust, Go, and Kotlin, all relatively new languages stand out:

Is there a correlation between 2020 salaries and the languages developers want to learn in 2021?

I compared the percent changes in languages worked with and those that want to be learned from the above plot and found a positive correlation. This suggests that the more lucrative a language was in 2020, the more apt a developer would want to learn that language.

Takeaways

Newer programming languages are the most powerful drivers in salary amount and job satisfaction. If you want to continue your career as a developer and are curious about learning new languages, I would definitely suggest checking out Python, Julia, Rust and Go.

For more on my analysis, here’s a link to my github