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Global Developer Population Reaches 19.6 Million in 2024: Explore the Updates in Our Data Playground
A year ago, we launched the Developer Ecosystem: Data Playground, an interactive dashboard offering insights into the global developer landscape. Today, we’re excited to introduce a significant update that enhances the dashboard with refined data, salary ranges, and even more granular insights into developer demographics and market trends. What’s New? To make it easier to […]
A year ago, we launched the Developer Ecosystem: Data Playground, an interactive dashboard offering insights into the global developer landscape. Today, we’re excited to introduce a significant update that enhances the dashboard with refined data, salary ranges, and even more granular insights into developer demographics and market trends.
What’s New?
To make it easier to explore and analyze different aspects of the developer landscape, we have now separated the IT Salary Calculator from the Data Playground dashboard. This will allow users to focus specifically on salary insights or dive deeper into developer population estimates without overlap:
- The IT Salary Calculator now stands on its own, allowing users to focus exclusively on salary trends. Our calculator provides clear salary ranges tailored by country, programming language, and total experience level.
- The Data Playground has been refined with a new methodology and 2024 data for deeper insights. This dashboard offers an in-depth view of global and regional developer populations, distributions across age groups and experience levels, and the prevalence of various programming languages, OSs, technologies, and more.
“This separation ensures a more streamlined experience and makes it easier to find the exact insights you need.”
How Many Developers Are There in the World? 2024 Update
Using our 2023 methodology, we estimated approximately 13.4 million professional developers worldwide. For 2024, our revised model puts the number closer to 19.6 million professional developers globally — a major increase driven by key updates to our methodology. To ensure accuracy, we have also revised historical estimates, aligning past data with our refined model.
Why Did the Numbers Change?
- Improved Data Sources
We’ve integrated new data from international labor organizations and the latest data from our 2024 Developer Ecosystem Survey, ensuring our estimates reflect the most up-to-date trends.
- Refined Methodology
Our model now better accounts for regional specifics and countries where developer growth has been accelerating. The five fastest-growing developer populations between 2019 and 2024 are:
- India now accounts for 14% year-over-year growth in its developer workforce, driven by its booming IT sector.
- The United States and China continue to dominate in total numbers of professional developers.
- Expanded Definition of Professional Developers
While we continue to focus on professional developers, we’ve refined our categories to include roles like Software Quality Assurance Analysts, Testers, and Data Scientists. These professions were previously grouped into broader categories that also included many non-coding specialists. With these roles now explicitly categorized in labor statistics, our estimates provide a more accurate picture of the developer workforce.
“Our Data Science team worked on updating the model to incorporate fresh labor statistics and better reflect the rapid growth of the ICT sector. We also focused on including more coding professions in estimation, such as Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Data Scientists, to ensure our estimates align more closely with the realities of the evolving developer landscape.”
“The global developer workforce is expanding faster than ever. Whether you’re hiring, planning a product launch, or exploring new markets, our updated Developer Ecosystem: Data Playground offers the insights you need to stay ahead.”
IT Salary Calculator: Now with Ranges
The IT Salary Calculator has been significantly enhanced to provide users with more accurate and actionable insights. The tool now offers salary ranges segmented by country, programming language, and total experience level, making it invaluable for job seekers, employers, and industry analysts.
“The salary data still comes from the Developer Ecosystem Survey but is now more precise. This year, respondents provided exact incomes (e.g., $4,200 monthly) instead of selecting from ranges (e.g., $4,000-$5,000). Additionally, we now display gross annual income – before taxes and including bonuses – for better comparability with other salary sources.”
Check salary distribution for your country and programming language with real data.
Let us know your feedback as we continue to improve and expand this resource!
