Software development is a large and expanding occupation in the United States, with strong projected job growth and wide differences in pay by industry. Survey data also shows how developers learn, work, collaborate, and use AI, while GitHub activity illustrates the scale of software creation worldwide.
Contents
- Employment outlook
- Wages and compensation
- Industries employing developers
- Learning and developer experience
- Workplaces and engineering practices
- GitHub activity and AI adoption
Employment outlook
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) combines software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers in one occupational group for its outlook measures. That group employed 1,895,500 people in 2024 and is projected to reach 2,183,300 jobs in 2034. The BLS projects 15% growth across the 2024–2034 period, an increase of 287,900 jobs. It also projects about 129,200 openings per year on average over the decade.
Software developers account for most of that projected increase. BLS projects 16% growth for software developers specifically between 2024 and 2034. Employment is projected to rise from 1,693,800 developers in 2024 to 1,961,400 in 2034, or 267,700 additional jobs. These are projections, not counts of jobs already created, and the measurement period is the ten years from 2024 through 2034.
The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program counted 1,656,880 software developers nationally in May 2023. That estimate had a relative standard error (RSE) of 0.7%, while the wage estimate had an RSE of 0.4%. The OEWS figures describe a May 2023 employment and wage snapshot; they are distinct from the BLS 2024–2034 projections.
Wages and compensation
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook reported a median annual wage of $133,080 for software developers in May 2024. The corresponding median for software quality assurance analysts and testers was $102,610. Median wage means half of workers were above the stated amount and half were below it within the measured occupation.
The May 2023 OEWS distribution provides more detail on how developer pay varied across the national workforce.
| May 2023 software developer wage measure | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $37.03 | $77,020 |
| 25th percentile | $48.65 | $101,200 |
| 50th percentile | $63.59 | $132,270 |
| 75th percentile | $80.55 | $167,540 |
| 90th percentile | $100.30 | $208,620 |
| Mean | $66.40 | $138,110 |
The 2023 OEWS mean hourly wage for software developers was $66.40, and the mean annual wage was $138,110. The percentile figures describe the distribution rather than a typical salary progression for an individual developer. They also come from May 2023, while the BLS median figures above come from May 2024.
Industry is associated with notable wage differences in the BLS May 2024 occupation data. Software developers in software publishers had a median annual wage of $149,990. The median was $134,910 in manufacturing, $133,650 in management of companies and enterprises, $132,880 in finance and insurance, and $129,890 in computer systems design and related services.
QA analysts and testers also had different medians by industry in May 2024. Manufacturing recorded $125,990, administrative and support services $102,620, finance and insurance $101,920, computer systems design and related services $99,720, and software publishers $99,050. These are occupation-by-industry medians, not averages across all workers in each industry.
Industries employing developers
The May 2023 OEWS data shows that computer systems design and related services employed 547,150 software developers. Developers represented 21.62% of employment in that industry, and their mean wage was $62.69 per hour or $130,390 per year.
Software publishers employed 165,260 software developers in May 2023. Developers represented 25.27% of employment there, with a mean wage of $71.45 per hour and $148,610 per year. The industry therefore combined a smaller employment base than computer systems design with a higher reported developer mean wage in this snapshot.
Management of companies and enterprises employed 86,460 software developers. Developers represented 3.12% of employment in that industry. The available OEWS figures identify the employment count and share, while the separate BLS May 2024 data reports a $133,650 median annual wage for developers in this industry.
Web search portals, libraries, archives, and other information services employed 44,730 software developers in May 2023. Developers represented 24.26% of employment in that industry. The mean wage was $103.77 per hour, or $215,840 annually, in the May 2023 OEWS data.
These industry figures should be read with their measurement dates intact. Employment counts and means above are May 2023 OEWS estimates, whereas the industry medians in the previous section are May 2024 BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook figures. A mean and a median are different measures and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Learning and developer experience
The 2024 Stack Overflow survey collected responses from 65,437 coders in 185 countries. Its results describe survey respondents rather than a census of all software developers. Among respondents, 66% had a BA/BS or MA/MS degree, 49% learned to code at school, and 82% learned through online resources.
Technical documentation was especially prominent in respondents’ learning habits. A total of 83.9% used technical documentation to learn to code, while 80.3% used Stack Overflow. In the survey’s documentation breakdown, 90.3% identified API and SDK documents as a commonly used source, 77.5% cited user guides or README files, 71.7% cited traditional public search engines, 37.5% cited a first-party knowledge base, and 30% cited AI-powered search or developer tools. Separately, 37% said AI helps them learn to code.
Experience levels varied. Thirty-eight percent of respondents had been coding for 15 years or more, while 24.5% of professional developers reported one to four years of work experience. In the full respondent population, 37% were ages 25 to 34. In the professional-developer subset, 42% were ages 25 to 34.
JavaScript was used by 62.3% of respondents in the past year. The survey also found that 76.3% had a Stack Overflow account and 93% visited Stack Overflow at least multiple times per month. Eighty-four percent were working either part-time, freelancing, or full-time. These percentages come from the 2024 Stack Overflow survey and reflect its respondent definitions.
Workplaces and engineering practices
The Stack Overflow 2024 survey recorded three distinct work arrangements: 42% of respondents worked hybrid, 38% worked remotely, and 20% worked in person. Within the professional-developer results, 32.4% had access to AI-assisted technology at work in 2024, and 41% worked in the software development industry.
The survey also measured engineering practices and organizational capabilities. Continuous integration and continuous delivery were reported by 68.6% of respondents. A DevOps function was reported by 58.3%, automated testing by 56.3%, microservices by 46.2%, a knowledge-sharing community by 39.9%, and observability tools by 38.3%.
Less common practices included a developer portal or other central platform at 29% and an innersource initiative at 15.6%. A smaller 10.4% said their company had none of the listed practices. These figures indicate the share reporting each practice; they are not a ranking of engineering quality or productivity.
The survey also captured developer attitudes toward technology and information quality. Seventy-five percent said they were more likely to endorse a technology if it provided access to APIs. Ethical concerns around AI results were widespread: 79% identified misinformation and disinformation as a top concern, while 65% identified source attribution as a top concern.
GitHub activity and AI adoption
GitHub’s Octoverse 2024 report recorded 5.6 billion contributions to all projects in 2024 and more than 5.2 billion contributions by developers around the world. GitHub also reported more than 518 million total open source, public, and private projects, nearly 1 billion contributions to public and open source projects, and 108 million new repositories during 2024.
Generative AI activity expanded within that ecosystem. GitHub reported 137,000 public generative AI projects in 2024, up 98% year over year. It also reported 70,000 new public and open source generative AI projects started during the year, almost 60% more total contributions to all generative AI projects, and nearly 150,000 generative AI projects on GitHub. More than 1 million maintainers, teachers, and students used GitHub Copilot for free.
GitHub reported a 379% year-over-year increase in developer activity in Antarctica, from 19 developers to 91. Because the starting count was small, this regional percentage describes a change from 19 to 91 developers rather than broad global workforce growth. GitHub’s open source survey also found that 30% of respondents classified themselves as minorities.
Earlier GitHub Octoverse figures provide additional context but use a different measurement year. In GitHub’s 2023 report, 93% of developers used Git to build and deploy software, and 92% were using or experimenting with AI coding tools. Private projects increased 38% year over year and accounted for more than 80% of all activity on GitHub in that report.
GitHub’s 2024 U.S. survey reported that 99% of U.S. respondents had used AI coding tools at work in 2024, up 8% from 2023. Ninety-two percent reported using AI coding tools to generate test cases at least some of the time, and 100% reported using AI to automate security reviews to some extent. Ninety-nine percent expected AI coding tools to improve security. These figures are U.S. survey results and should not be generalized to all developers worldwide.