I’m after statistics on the number of developers (world wide, but even within the US would be fine) over time. Obviously, the industry is growing, but by how much? I’d just like to see a graph showing the numbers over the past 5-10 years. Does anyone know where I might find something like this?
With all of the various developer surveys that are around, I thought that this info would be easy to find, but I guess surveys don’t deal with broad labour force numbers.
I usually reference the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to get an idea for at least the US labor force:
TLDR:
The job outlook for software engineers is estimated to grow by 22% in the next 10 years, which is much faster than average.
With ~1.4 million developers currently employed with an estimated 316k jobs to be added in the next 10 years.
Another thing to note is the average entry-level education is still a Bachelor’s degree, so those without a degree will still need to fight for the jobs.
Median pay is estimated to be 107k, which is higher than some sources I looked at (such as glassdoor), but inline with stack overflows 2019 survey results.
Like all statistics, its good to keep all numbers in perspective. Its possible StackOverflow survey’s are only filled out with those that utilize its services, and thus are “more experience” thus tilting the scale in terms of average skill level. Or the USBLS has other kinds of bias in its reporting. Regardless a majority of sources do point consider “software development” to be a rising field still. (beyond the ones I reference here)
Finally, these statistics pass the “smell test”. Software is still needed, will be needed, and more software will be created in different industries and use-cases. As such it makes sense the field will continue to grow in the foreseeable future.