Web Development Statistics (How Many Web Developers Are There?)

Are you interested in knowing about the latest web development statistics?

We will answer many questions, revealing all the ins and outs so you can learn more about the web development industry.

Maybe you’re considering becoming a web developer or starting a web development agency?

That’s when these stats will come in handy, helping you make the final decision.

But we’ll answer the most common question, “Are web developers still in demand?”

Yes, they are.

This post covers:

• How Many Web Developers Are There?
• How Much Is The Web Development Market Worth?
• How Much Does Web Development Cost?
• Which Language Is Best For Web Development?
• What Does Good Web Development Mean?
• General Web Development Stats

Before continuing, we also already explained the difference between a web designer and a web developer – because we often get that question.

How Many Web Developers Are There?

The global number of software and web developers globally is continuously on the rise, with the most rapid growth in the future expected in China. China experiences a 6-8% percent growth

Year	Number of developers in millions
2024	28.7
2023	27.7
2021	25.6
2020	24.5
2019	23.9
2018	23

Remember, besides Statista, we also found another resource (Developer Nation), estimating a much higher number of total developers – 31.1 million in Q1 2022.

Resource: Statista

How Many Web Developers Are In The US? 

The United States still has one of the largest populations (except Asia, which has 6.5+ million talent) of developers and programmers, at approximately 4.4 million.

Most developers are in California, followed by Texas in second and New York in third place. These are also the three regions with the most software developer job offerings.

Location	Number of developers
California	628,414
Texas	324,717
New York	218,041
Virginia	204,699
Washington	143,971
Massachusetts	141,755
Oregon	52,800
District of Columbia	26,749
New Hampshire	26,359
Vermont	6,896

After reviewing multiple research and investigating various surveys, it’s safe to say that the number of web developers is continuously rising all over the US.

According to Qubit, the US has around 1.3+ million developer jobs, expected to increase by 280,000+ by 2028.

The employment rate in the United States was 60.20% in February 2023.

How Many Web Developers Are There Globally?

It goes without surprise that India has the highest demand for web and software developers.

One of the reasons is likely that many global organizations and small businesses are outsourcing the programming work to India, where the talent is cheaper (but not the cheapest).

Country	Number of developers
India	5.8 million
Germany	901,000
UK	408,000
Vietnam	350,000
Poland	250,000
Mexico	223,000
Ukraine	212,000
Singapore	200,000
Sweden	180,000
Argentina	134,000

Source: Trading Economics, Qubit, Evans Data

Web Developers By Gender

The majority of developers are still men, while women programmers are dropping.

• 81.7% of developers are male
• 17.4% of developers are female

However, more and more companies and organizations are seeking female web developers, so we can expect the percentage to increase in the future.

Web Developers By Age

As you can see from the list below, most (nearly 65%) of male and female web developers are aged 34 and below.

But there’s still a pretty significant number of programmers between the ages of 35-44.

• 2.89% (under 18)
• 29.9% (18-24)
• 31.9% (25-34)
• 21.3%(35-44)
• 9.43% (45-54)

The big drop for ages 45 and above is due to various reasons, including burnout, health issues, job changes, etc.

How many web developers are self-taught?

Thanks to all the amazing free online resources, a whopping 63.8% of all web developers are self-taught.

• 63.8% (self-taught using online/offline resources)
• 41.1% (schooled traditionally – undergraduate)
• 36.5% (schooled online using courses (Udemy, Coursera, etc.))
• 30.1% (received training on the job)
• 18% (schooled traditionally – postgraduate)

Because software, applications, websites and anything else in between requiring a developer is on the rise, more and more men and women decide to learn programming skills by themselves.

Source: Developer Nation

How Much Do Web Developers Earn

An average salary across all job titles in the United States is around $75,800 annually. It varies from $45k+ being the lowest and $125k+ being the highest.

Remember that the numbers can vary because stats are taken from different resources (different companies). While they aren’t necessarily significantly lower, they can be considerably higher.

For instance, according to SalaryExpert, the average US salary of a web developer is $89,700/year.

Some of the top-paying companies in the US are BlueModus ($119,640/year), LiveView Technologies ($115,730/year), Beast Code ($115,229/year), Ledgent Technology ($110,345/year) and Pueo Business Solutions ($109,277/year).

Moreover, the more years of experience a web developer has, the higher the salary.

Years of experience	Salary per year
<1 year	$68,201
6-9 years	$88,533
10+ years	$96,474

Furthermore, a back-end developer (approx. $155K/year) will earn significantly more than a front-end developer (approx. $103K/year) and even a full-stack developer (approx. $117K/year).

How much are average developer salaries around the world?

We chose the top ten countries with the most web developers to see what are their average wages.

Country	Average salary
India	$20,000+
Germany	$83,000+
UK	$69,000+
Vietnam	$23,800+
Poland	$37,100+
Mexico	$25,200+
Ukraine	$16,600+
Singapore	$74,300+
Sweden	$58,900+
Argentina	$18,900+

As we can see from the above table, India isn’t the country with the lowest salary, but it’s, surprisingly, Ukraine, followed by Argentina.

Source: Indeed, SalaryExpert

How much are average salaries based on job titles?

Job title	Average salary
Web developer	$62,700+
Front end developer/engineer	$82,300+
Senior web developer	$89,700+
Web application developer	$70,800+
Software engineer	$87,700+
Full stack software developer	$80,500+
Lead web developer	$82,900+

In the Stack Overflow survey, we also found that 68,61% of coders are employed full-time and only 14.95% are either self-employed, freelancers or contractors.

Source: PayScale

Are Web Developers Coding Outside Of Work?

Yes, most coders also code outside of work; 72.87% say they do it as a hobby, 26.11% contribute to open-source projects and 22.59% work on freelance or contract projects.

Only 12.41% of developers don’t code when not at work.

How Much Is The Web Development Market Worth?

The global web development market worth was estimated at $56 billion in 2021, expected to reach $89+ billion by 2027. This is another excellent proof that web development is in high demand.

Moreover, the global programming language market was evaluated at $154 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $343 billion by 2029.

Source: Market Growth Reports, MMR

Website Builder Market Size

While we already have an in-depth overview of the website builder market share, here’s a quick recap: It was valued at $1.8 billion in 2022, expected to surpass the $3.5 billion milestone in the next decade.

How Much Does Web Development Cost?

There’s no general cost for web development because it all depends on the complexity of the projects and what software is necessary to make it happen.

Also, building a simple personal blog is way easier and faster than making a corporate website or an online store.

Remember, a single person can create a blog, but it usually takes an entire team or an agency to design and develop a more complex web application.

However, it can all begin at around $1,000.

What Factors Impact The Cost Of Web Development?

Because every type of website requires a different number of hours to complete, Spload created a table for us to understand it better.

Note: The average hourly rate is $60/hour.

Website type	Cost
Landing page	$5,000
Online portfolio	$6,000
Blog	$7,000
Corporate site	$10,000
Directory	$17,000
eCommerce/online store	$60,000
Educational website	$60,000
Marketplace	$73,000
SaaS website	$75,000
Social media page	$120,000

Remember, these are web development costs of building projects from scratch. For example, building a blog on WordPress (even if hiring someone to do it for you) will be significantly cheaper.

By the way, have you already checked our WordPress statistics? (More than 40% of all sites use it!)

Source: Spdload

Why Hire A Web Developer (Freelancer Or Agency)?

Time

One of the main reasons for hiring a professional, regardless of the project you’re after, is to save time.

Yup, designing and developing stuff on the web takes time. And it takes even more time if you’re unfamiliar with the programming languages, even WordPress.

Sure, the later is extremely beginner-friendly, but if you’ve never seen what the WP admin looks like, you first need to get comfortable with it. The same goes for installing themes, plugins, making customizations, etc. (It’s not challenging but can be time-consuming.)

Skills & experience

The second reason, as we roughly mentioned above, is the lack of skills and experience. Building custom designs or adding custom functionality to your website (even if it’s only a blog) may require advanced knowledge beyond your capabilities.

New tech

The third reason would be new technologies. If you’re not a web developer, you’re not up-to-date with the latest software, technologies, or even what’s working best when adding new features or a website.

UX

The fourth reason to employ a web developer is modernism, excellent optimization and the best user experience, which are all necessary for the success of your online project.

Support

The fifth reason is support. Unfortunately, building anything online is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation. And when something goes wrong, and you’re unsure about what to do, you may run into even more inconvenience. But you can always rely on the professional, seeking assistance to solve the issue as soon as possible.

How Long Does It Take To Develop A Website?

According to Spdload, developing a website can take from 80 hours and anywhere to 2000 hours. This goes for building a website from scratch and without doing industry and competition research.

But the length should be drastically lowered when using web builders because of the ready-to-use page templates, tools and features that require no coding to assemble.

Still, this doesn’t mean there will be 0 programming involved because a professional can still perform specific tweaks unique to a project.

You may also be interested in our ultimate guide on how to make a website (that doesn’t require hiring a professional).

What Does A Web Developer Do?

A web developer builds web applications, like websites, landing pages, templates, plugins, etc.

But there are two types of developers, front- and back-end.

A front-end developer is a person who deals with the stuff that you can “see” – the visual part of a website.

And a back-end developer is a person who takes care of the stuff you cannot “see” – the technical part of a website.

What’s also important to note is that many web developers do both front- and back-end. That would be a full-stack developer.

However, the truly best are the ones who specialize in one segment.

Which Language Is Best For Web Development?

According to a survey with 71k+ responses, JavaScript is still the most popular programming language of all, at 65.36%. The second is HTML/CSS at 55.08% and the third is SQL at 49.43%.

Keep in mind that a web developer usually knows at least three of the fundamental (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) languages, if not more.

The 10 Most Popular Programming Languages

Programming language	Popularity in %
JavaScript	65.36
HTML/CSS	55.08
SQL	49.43
Python	48.07
TypeScript	34.83
Java	33.27
Bash/Shell	29.07
C#	27.98
C++	22.55
PHP	20.87

Is It Difficult To Learn HTML?

No, HTML is one of the easiest, if not the easiest, programming languages to learn. And numbers don’t lie, thanks to a survey done by WPEngine.

Programming language	How many think it’s easy to learn?
HTML	13.3%
Python	9%
JavaScript	6.2%
PHP	4.9%
Java	4.6%

What Software Do Web Developers Use?

The Stack Overflow survey found that npm, Docker, Git, Unity 3D, Yarn, .NET, Sublime Text and Jira Work Management are some of web developers’ more popular tools and solutions.

Most Popular Databases

MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite are the most popular databases among 63,000+ surveyed developers.

Database	Popularity in %
MySQL	46.85
PostgreSQL	43.59
SQLite	32.01
MongoDB	28.3
Microsoft SQL Server	26.87
Redis	22.13
MariaDB	17.93
Elasticsearch	12.21
Oracle	11.49
Firebase Realtime Database	8.72

What’s more, coders prefer AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud as the three most common cloud platforms for work.

5 Most Popular Frameworks And Technologies

The following table is a result of 58,000+ responses.

Web framework	Popularity in %
Node.js	47.12
React.js	42.62
jQuery	28.57
Express	22.99
Angular	20.39

There are twenty more you can study further in the Stack Overflow survey.

Do Web Developers Prefer Windows, macOS, Or Linux?

Windows is still the most widespread operating system among 71,000+ coders, whether for professional or personal use.

Operating system	Popularity in %
Windows	48.82
Linux-based	39.89
macOS	32.97

Which Version Control Platform Do Coders Prefer?

The three Version Control platforms below are the most opted for for personal and professional use.

Version Control platform	Popularity in %
GitHub	55.93
GitLab	28.9
Bitbucket	18.42

Source: WPEngine, Stack Overflow

What Does Good Web Development Mean?

Good web development ensures that a web application has top-notch back-end and front-end.

But let’s have a closer look at three of the more important factors that make good web development really GOOD.

Lightweight Web Applications

One of the essential characteristics of any web development is a lightweight final product. This means no bloat, unnecessary code, scripts and anything else that may contribute to a poor user experience.

A light web app will also have an organized structure, making everything easy to access, which is handy when performing optimizations, improvements or bug fixes.

It also ensures that everyone can understand it, even if a new developer takes over.

Page Speed Statistics

We’ll only mention some of our top picks because we already have a comprehensive article written on site speed statistics.

Good web development means amazing performance, which is also how fast the website loads. Sites must load within a three-second framework, but online stores must load even quicker (preferably in less than 2 seconds).

However, a survey reported that 30% of all surveyed said they are willing to wait from six to ten seconds for a website to load.

But remember, increasing the loading speed just by 0.1 seconds can improve conversions by 8.4%.

Mobile-First Web Development

Everything online must be responsive, so there’s no good web development without mobile-friendliness.

Why?

Because more than half of all the web traffic is mobile.

Statista reported that in the fourth quarter of 2022, mobile traffic spiked to 59.16%. But there are still industries where users prefer desktop over mobile.

If you’re a (soon-to-be) developer, you may also want to check these fantastic tools for responsive web design.

Source: Statista

General Web Development Stats

Let’s quickly look at some of the more general web development-related statistics.

But if you’re interested in learning more, then check out our complete insight into website statistics.

Web Usage Statistics

In January 2023, Statista reported 5.16 billion internet users globally, most of them being social media users.

Mobile Web Statistics

As mentioned above, 59.16% of all web traffic was mobile users in Q4 2022. It’s an expected increase because most sales happen online in the year’s final quarter.

Web Browser Statistics

Chrome (64.1%) is still the most popular web browser, followed by Safari (19.2%) in second and Edge (4.2%) in third position.

How Many Websites Are There?

Even though there are reported to be a WOWing 1.1 bullion websites, “only” 199 million are actively running. And most of all domains (21.6%) are “located” in the USA – 136.3 million.

Since we’re on the topic of sites, get a dose of the best developer portfolios if you need inspiration.

Source: Statista

Conclusion

This wraps it up; you now have a broader understanding of web development.

It’s an industry on the rise, which is no surprise due to the growing use of the internet – especially mobile traffic.

You may also be interested in our web design statistics to see if there are any similarities with development. But all the graphic design stats we gathered are also a must-check.

Are you a web developer or a soon-to-be one? Does any of the stats relate to you? Which is your favorite programming language?

Feel free to leave a comment below.