Software spans occupations, developer communities, commercial tools and open-source ecosystems. These software industry statistics define the population, geography and period for each measure, from U.S. employment estimates and forecasts to 2024 survey and platform data.
Key Software Industry Statistics
The most broadly useful figures include:
- In May 2024, 1,654,440 software developers worked in the United States, with mean annual pay of $144,570.
- In May 2024, 199,800 software quality assurance analysts and testers worked in the United States, with mean annual pay of $110,260.
- In May 2024, 179,430 information security analysts worked in the United States, with mean annual pay of $127,730.
- BLS projects U.S. software developer employment to increase 10.2% from 2023 to 2033, reaching 1.8926 million jobs.
- BLS projects U.S. data scientist employment to increase 34.6% from 2023 to 2033, reaching 371,000 jobs.
- BLS projects U.S. information security analyst employment to increase 21.0% from 2023 to 2033, reaching 233,400 jobs.
- In the 2024 Stack Overflow survey, 66% of global respondents reported a BA/BS or MA/MS degree.
- In the 2024 Stack Overflow survey, 82% of global respondents used online resources to learn coding.
- JavaScript was used by 62.3% of global Stack Overflow respondents in the prior year reported by the 2024 survey.
- PostgreSQL was used by 49% of global Stack Overflow respondents in the prior year reported by the 2024 survey.
- In the 2024 Stack Overflow survey, 76% of global respondents were using or planning to use AI tools in development.
- In the 2024 Stack Overflow survey, 81% of global respondents identified increased productivity as AI’s biggest benefit.
- In the 2024 Stack Overflow survey, 43% of global respondents felt good about AI-output accuracy, while 31% were skeptical.
- GitHub reported 518 million total projects in 2024, up 25% year over year.
- Developers made more than 5.2 billion contributions to all GitHub projects in 2024.
- GitHub counted nearly 150,000 public generative-AI projects in 2024, up 98% year over year.
- In 2023, computer programming, consultancy and related activities represented 52% of EU ICT services.
- EU ICT-sector apparent labour productivity was nearly €111,000 per person employed in 2023.
Contents
- Software industry workforce scale and pay
- Software and computing job growth trends
- Developer education, participation and experience
- Software tools, languages and platforms
- AI adoption, trust and outcomes
- Open-source activity and the software ecosystem
Software Industry Workforce Scale and Pay
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics estimates describe occupations rather than a complete count of software-industry firms or global workers. May 2024 figures are U.S. estimates, and annual mean pay assumes year-round full-time work.
| U.S. occupation | Employment, May 2024 | Mean annual pay | Median hourly pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software developers | 1,654,440 | $144,570 | $63.98 |
| Computer systems analysts | 497,800 | $111,960 | $49.90 |
| Network and computer systems administrators | 318,570 | $101,190 | $46.54 |
| Data scientists | 233,440 | $124,590 | $54.13 |
| Software QA analysts and testers | 199,800 | $110,260 | $49.33 |
| Information security analysts | 179,430 | $127,730 | $60.05 |
| Computer programmers | 109,870 | $103,640 | $47.44 |
| Database administrators | 73,180 | $107,440 | $50.30 |
Source: Occupational Employment and Wages – May 2024, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These are BLS occupational estimates, not a complete software-industry census.
Software and Computing Job Growth Trends
BLS projections cover U.S. occupations from 2023 through 2033. They are forecasts, not guaranteed hiring outcomes.
| Occupation | 2023 jobs | 2033 projected jobs | Change | Annual openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data scientists | 275,600 | 371,000 | +34.6% | 24,800 |
| Computer and information research scientists | 38,600 | 47,000 | +21.8% | 2,900 |
| Information security analysts | 192,900 | 233,400 | +21.0% | 14,100 |
| Software developers | 1,717,800 | 1,892,600 | +10.2% | 95,300 |
| QA analysts and testers | 187,600 | 198,200 | +5.7% | 10,700 |
| Web developers | 87,400 | 90,600 | +3.8% | 5,300 |
| Computer support specialists | 903,100 | 878,800 | -2.7% | 48,700 |
| Computer programmers | 110,800 | 102,700 | -7.3% | 4,400 |
Source: Occupational projections and worker characteristics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The projection period is 2023–2033.
Developer Education, Participation and Experience
The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey reflects global, self-selected and self-reported respondents; it is not a probability sample of all developers. Percentages use the survey’s stated respondent or subgroup denominators.
- 66% of respondents reported a BA/BS or MA/MS degree, and 49% said they learned to code at school in the 2024 survey.
- 82% used online resources to learn coding; technical documentation was used by 84%, Stack Overflow by 80%, and AI tools by 37%.
- API and SDK documentation was the preferred technical-documentation source for 90% of 2024 respondents.
- 38% had been coding for at least 15 years, while one-third had four years or less of professional coding experience.
- Professional developers aged 25–34 represented 42% of professional-developer respondents.
Among country-reporting respondents, the United States supplied 18.9%, India 7.2%, Germany 8.4% and the United Kingdom 5.5%. These shares describe this survey population, not the global developer population.
Source: Developer Profile | 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
Software Development Tools, Languages and Platforms
Tool and technology figures below describe prior-year use, preference or admiration among 2024 Stack Overflow survey respondents. They should not be read as market-share measurements.
| Technology or tool | Reported measure | Population and period |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript | 62.3% used it | All respondents, prior year, 2024 survey |
| PostgreSQL | 49% used it | All respondents, prior year, 2024 survey |
| Docker | 59% used it | Professional developers, prior year |
| npm | 45% used it | People learning to code, prior year |
| Raspberry Pi | 30% used it | All respondents, prior year |
| Rust | 83% admiration | Programming-language respondents, 2024 |
| Hetzner | 75% admiration | Cloud-platform respondents, 2024; 70% prior year |
| Ruff | 84% wanted to continue using it | Ruff users, 2024 |
Visual Studio Code was used by at least twice as many respondents as the nearest related alternative, Visual Studio. It was also the most-used and most-desired IDE at 59%, while Neovim had the highest admired score at 83%.
Teams ranked first as the most popular synchronous communication tool among professional developers, while Discord ranked first among people learning to code. PostgreSQL was the most-used database for the second consecutive year.
Source: 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Technology.
AI Adoption, Trust and Outcomes in Software Development
AI figures from the 2024 Stack Overflow survey are self-reported perceptions or expectations, not controlled benchmarks or causal measurements. The comparison with the prior survey refers to the survey’s reported 2023–2024 results.
- 76% of respondents were using or planning to use AI tools in development in 2024, including 62% currently using them versus 44% in the prior survey.
- 72% were favorable or very favorable toward AI tools for development in the 2024 survey.
- Increased productivity was identified as the biggest benefit by 81% of respondents.
- Speeding up learning was a benefit for 71% of people learning to code and 61% of professional developers.
- 43% felt good about AI-output accuracy, while 31% were skeptical.
- 45% of professional developers rated AI tools bad or very bad at complex tasks.
- Among current AI-tool users, 82% used AI to write code; among interested nonusers, 46% were interested in testing code.
- Respondents expected AI to be more integrated one year later into documenting code for 81%, testing code for 80% and writing code for 76%.
- 70% of professional developers did not perceive AI as a threat to their current job.
- Misinformation or disinformation was an important ethical concern for 79% of respondents, and source attribution for 65%.
Source: AI | 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
Open-Source Activity and the Software Ecosystem
GitHub’s Octoverse measures activity on GitHub and its defined project sets, not the entire global software industry. The following figures refer to global platform activity in 2024 unless another period is stated.
- GitHub reported 518 million total projects, up 25% year over year.
- Developers made nearly 1 billion contributions to public and open-source projects and more than 5.2 billion contributions to all projects.
- GitHub counted nearly 150,000 public generative-AI projects, up 98% year over year, and contributions to those projects rose 59%.
- Developers created more than 70,000 new public and open-source generative-AI projects.
- 1.4 million developers made their first open-source contribution in 2024.
- More than 1 million open-source maintainers and verified students and teachers used GitHub Copilot at no cost.
- More than 450,000 GitHub Education users made their first contribution during the year reported in Octoverse 2024.
- Jupyter Notebook usage increased 92% from the prior year and more than 170% since 2022.
- JavaScript package consumption through npm increased 15% year over year.
- Python ranked first as GitHub’s most-used language in 2024 by its composite activity measure, ahead of JavaScript.
Source: Octoverse: AI leads Python to top language as the number of global developers surges.
Eurostat provides a broader regional view through the official EU ICT-sector classification, which includes ICT manufacturing and services and is broader than software publishing alone. In 2023, computer programming, consultancy and related activities represented 52% of EU ICT services, while telecommunications represented 21%; around 4.5 million people employed in the EU ICT sector worked in programming, consultancy and related activities, while telecommunications represented 10.9% of ICT employment.
Large enterprises with at least 250 employees accounted for 44.5% of EU ICT-sector employment in 2023, compared with 21.3% for micro-enterprises with 0–9 employees. Apparent labour productivity was nearly €111,000 per person employed across the EU ICT sector, about €102,400 in ICT services and €215,770 in ICT manufacturing.
Source: Structure of the employment in ICT sector by size of enterprises, EU, 2023.