What skills do developers have and what’s in demand? Measured by the Hackerank platform.
The past few years have seen plenty of uncertainty. Yet through a global pandemic, geopolitical conflict, supply chain woes, and inflation, innovation keeps pushing inexorably forward.
Even as the broader economic outlook appears to be softening, the demand – and competition – for skilled tech talent has only increased.
At HackerRank, we’ve seen this firsthand. In the last five years, the number of unique candidates invited to our assessments has tripled.
Today we have over 21 million developers in our community. That’s about 40% of the world’s developers using HackerRank to build their skills, earn certifications, and find rewarding jobs.
To understand the state of developer skills heading into 2023, we’re taking a different approach with this year’s Developer Skills Report. Instead of relying on survey responses, we’re going directly to the source: our own platform data. Using this data, we get an unbiased, unparalleled view into the programming languages and technical skills employers are looking for, and which roles and assessments drive the most engagement.
We hope you enjoy our findings. Want to share some insights or need help? Tweet us @hackerrank or contact us on LinkedIn with comments or questions.
Measuring language demand
There’s a lot of information (and some strong opinions) about what specific programming languages developers are using. But popularity doesn’t necessarily translate to demand by employers. To determine demand in the workplace, we explored the sum of monthly active tests mandating a specific language.
Only about 1 in 5 assessments require a specific language. The remainder were left to the candidate’s preferences.
Of the 20% or so of assessments that mandated a specific programming language, we noticed a few data points of interest.
Group 126 (1)
Volume is heavily concentrated in the top five languages
The top five languages by volume – Java, Python, SQL, C++, and JavaScript – dominate the list. Fifth-ranked JavaScript has nearly four times the volume of the sixth-ranked Bash.
For 2022, SQL has been growing at a steady rate and managed to surpass C++, but we’re unlikely to see any further place-trading among the top five in 2023.
We’re also unlikely to see any of the lower-ranked languages break into the top five. The volume gap is simply too great to overcome.
Figure 2: Programming Languages ranked by sum of monthly active tests
Most languages are growing, but not equally
In 2022, demand for most languages rose, but not equally. To get a sense of where the various languages stand in relation to each other, we indexed individual language growth against total market growth.
In terms of growth relative to the market, top-ranked Java is actually growing slightly slower than the market. As are C++ and JavaScript. Meanwhile Python and SQL demand grew. While Python’s growth may mean that it narrows the gap on Java, again, it’s unlikely to lead to any place-trading.
Figure 3: Programming Language 2022 growth, indexed against market growth (138%)
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