What are the most in-demand software skills in the market right now? What languages would you advise an aspiring developer to focus on? We regularly get these questions from developers, journalists, and clients alike. So we’ve dived into the numbers and have made an educated guess of what software development skills will be most in demand for the upcoming year.
Advertised software jobs and salaries
We figured the most telling data would be about what businesses are looking for and willing to pay. By far, most available data concerns the US. But it’s fair to assume that these represent where things are going globally. After all, many tech trends are initiated there. Further, we cross-checked some sample data with other countries outside the US, which more or less confirmed this assumption.
So, we’ve based our research on data from StackOverflow, Dice, and Indeed.com. The annual StackOverflow survey contains interesting data, including current developer salary levels. Meanwhile, Dice produces an annual tech salary report that contains detailed information about current salaries and how they relate to the past year. Further, Indeed can be used to track the number of vacancies that mention a specific language.
We haven’t put too much value on the absolute numbers as we’re looking for trends. Especially since these are US figures and our developer base is in Africa, where both wages and cost of living are categories lower (we pay exceptionally well compared to the local African market, but still, rates for quality developers in Africa are generally at least five times lower than in the US). But since software development is a global business, we think these trends in the US are probably reflective, if not predictive, of what will be the most in-demand software skills worldwide. So let’s look at the trends…
Most commonly in-demand software skills
We’ve gathered data on 20 software languages/skills that we filtered from the StackOverflow survey based on perceived popularity and available data. So if you feel an essential language or framework is missing, do not hesitate to point this out. The 20 researched skills are (in alphabetical order): Bash/Shell/Powershell, C, C#, C++, Go, HTML/CSS, Java, Javascript, Kotlin, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Scala, SQL, Swift, TypeScript, VBA.
Now, without further ado, what were our findings?
1. Python, SQL, and Java are the most advertised software skills
We’ve counted the times each language appears in a job vacancy at Indeed. This ranges from around 2,500 great job postings with Golang at the bottom to 84,000 outstanding postings for Python at the top. SQL comes second just behind Python, but it has to be said that we noticed that in many cases SQL was demanded in combination with a host of other skills.
There are about 500,000 outstanding postings for these 20 skills at the moment. 2/3 of which are for the top-5:
- Python
- SQL
- Java
- Javascript
- C++
- C#
- HTML/CSS
- Ruby
- Perl
- C
- Bash/Shell/Powershell
- PHP
- Swift
- TypeScript
- Scala
- VBA
- R
- Objective-C
- Kotlin
- Go
The bottom three are Objective-C, Kotlin, and Go, which account for less than 8,000 great job postings.
2. Hiring a Scala, Go, or Perl developer is the most expensive
Whereas Go might not be literally among the most in-demand software skills, it is definitely among the relatively most scarce skills. When looking at the salaries offered for developers, Go tops the list:
- Scala
- Go
- Perl
- Objective-C
- Ruby
- Kotlin
- C
- Swift
- Bash/Shell/Powershell
- Java
- Python
- TypeScript
- C++
- R
- C#
- SQL
- Javascript
- HTML/CSS
- PHP
- VBA
Interestingly, the top-5 skills are high in absolute demand and are not so high in relative demand (i.e., expensive). They are all somewhere in the middle salary range. Moreover, Javascript and SQL are both more at the lower end.
So the conclusion is that where absolute demand is high, generally speaking, the supply of developers proficient in those languages is also substantial. Salary levels say something about relative demand. That is to say, how scarce are the skills in relation to demand?
3. Demand for Perl, VBA, and C++ developers has the most momentum
It’s also interesting to examine which software skills are becoming more or less expensive. This tells us whether the relative demand for those skills is increasing. In other words, which skills are becoming more challenging to the source?
Based on the Dice data, we’ve ranked the offered salary level per skill and compared it to last year. What stood out is that the momentum in ‘expensive’ skills such as Scala, Go, Objective-C, and Kotlin is relatively weak (all four in the bottom 5). And Microsoft-related skills all have solid momentum: VBA (Visual Basic for Applications, a language developed by Microsoft for its applications), C# (the core language of . NET), and even C (kernel of most operating systems is in C), whose momentum is neutral.
- Perl
- VBA
- C++
- PHP
- C#
- Javascript
- Ruby
- SQL
- R
- TypeScript
- HTML/CSS
- Bash/Shell/Powershell
- Python
- Java
- C
- Scala
- Swift
- Objective-C
- Go
- Kotlin
4. On average, Perl, Ruby, and C++ are the top 3 software skills with the most demand pressure
So what happens if we put all this together and make an equally-weighted ranking based on the number of outstanding job postings, salary level, and salary momentum? That should give us a good impression of the most in-demand software skills in the coming year. Ratatata…..and the winner is Perl!
- Perl
- Ruby
- C++
- Python
- SQL
- C#
- Java
- Javascript
- C
- Bash/Shell/Powershell
- Scala
- PHP
- TypeScript
- HTML/CSS
- VBA
- Swift
- R
- Objective-C
- Go
- Kotlin
This is an exciting outcome, as Perl and Ruby are both languages that are generally considered doomed. But if we look at the actual number of vacancies, they are still in 8th and 9th place. And perhaps the negative press they got made it unattractive for developers to take them up as new skills, creating a relative scarcity in the process. So although maybe in the long run, they will not be the most popular languages, in the nearer term, they top our most in-demand software skills list for 2021!
