Survey reveals what the coders building the future desire

Software coders are largely under 35, earn an average of $55,000, love Rust, dread Visual Basic 6 and are excited about artificial intelligence, according to global survey.

According to the Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey, which quizzed 100,000 coders in 183 countries, revealed insights into the people businesses will need as they evolve into the enterprises of the future.

Stack Overflow CEO Joel Spolsky said every company is a technology company today. “Without developers, the economy would not evolve at the pace we’re seeing today,” he said.

“They are the architects of code that empower our everyday lives, and the people responsible for teaching machines how to think.

“The findings of this survey are indispensable for businesses as they look to enable their tech workforce and attract the best developer talent,” said Spolsky.

The first thing businesses should understand is that coders are not really out in the market looking for new jobs. Only 15% are in fact actively seeking new jobs. But there is hope for businesses looking for talent because 60% of the developers surveyed said they would consider one if it was available.

Then businesses should understand how much these IT professionals will cost. The survey revealed the median developer salary worldwide is $55,000, with professional developers in the US the highest paid earning an average of $100,000. Programmers in the UK and Germany earn an average of $63,000 and $61,000 respectively.

The survey also revealed that coding is a young profession, with 57% of developers having less than five years of professional experience, and about 75% of them are under 35 years old.

Meanwhile, the most commonly used programming language they are using is JavaScript, with Python rising in the ranks and now surpassing C#. For the third year in a row, Rust was the language most loved among survey respondents and Visual Basic 6 ranked as the most dreaded.