Unveiling Developer Insights With Our Data Playground: How Many Developers Are There in the World?

Raisa Kanischeva

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In the dynamic realm of technology, understanding the global landscape of software developers is a key to success. The Market Research and Analytics team at JetBrains is introducing a new service – the Developer Ecosystem: Data Playground. This service features interactive dashboards that empower you to explore and analyze the world of developers easily and precisely.

How many professional developers are there in the world?

Over the years, the IT sector has seen significant growth. In 2023, our internal model estimates that there were around 13.4 million professional developers worldwide. The model behind the Developer Ecosystem: Data Playground is based on data from international labor organizations and our annual Developer Ecosystem Survey, ensuring it is up-to-date and comprehensive.

Vasiliy Kaminskiy, Data Science Team Lead

The term “professional developer” is central to our approach. In this category, we include software developers whose primary responsibility is coding and code-related roles like team leads and testers, as well as QA engineers, data analysts, database administrators, and others whose primary responsibility is not coding. Our model is limited to employed specialists, intentionally excluding students and hobbyists. This focus on professionals may lead to differences between our numbers and those of other sources, such as GitHub, which counts the total number of non-spam user accounts on its platform, or SlashData, whose estimate of the number of developers includes students and hobbyists.

Exploring developer numbers with the Data Playground

The Data Playground was created to share free and comprehensive data that can help product managers, developers, analysts, and others make data-informed decisions. 

• Navigate tech trends. Dive into the realm of emerging technologies, programming languages, platforms, and more by exploring our data.
• Uncover the nuances of developer demographics. Understand the distribution of professionals across different job roles, age groups, experience levels, industries, and more.
• Explore market sizes. Tailor your product strategy precisely by delving into market sizes based on country, industry, software type, and programming language.

Salary insights with the Data Playground

A key feature of the Data Playground is the IT Salary Calculator. Built on robust data gathered from the annual JetBrains Developer Ecosystem Survey, the IT Salary Calculator will give you an estimate of the distribution of developer salaries based on experience level, primary programming language, and selected country. For instance, let’s look at Python developers in Germany with less than one year of experience. In the Data Playground, you will get a detailed breakdown that allows you to understand the salary distribution.

Vasiliy Kaminskiy, Data Science Team Lead

We designed this IT Salary Calculator to meet the diverse demands of various professionals and product owners. Whether you’re a professional seeking salary insights, an HR specialist benchmarking salaries, or a business owner estimating labor costs, this tool can serve as a starting point to inform you about the salary landscape.

The tech landscape is vast, and understanding it is key to success. Whether navigating trends, exploring demographics, assessing markets, or delving into salary landscapes, the Developer Ecosystem: Data Playground from JetBrains can empower you on your journey. 

We’ll continue releasing new data, filters, and dashboards, and we would be happy to hear your feedback or ideas on how we could improve the service.