With over 200 programming languages available, it's crucial to identify which ones offer the highest salaries in 2023 for developers. From 01-October-2022 to 01-October-2023 (1 year), DevJobsScanner has analyzed more than 10M dev job offers from around the world to help us understand the market and the most trending and paid languages. For this study, we focused exclusively on jobs from the United States. This guarantees a more coherent and representative result, significantly minimizing any potential data deviations.
From a total of 10 million development jobs, 1.3 million had salaries. Out of that 1.3 million, 230,000 could be categorized under programming languages. Among those 230,000, approximately 86,000 job offers were from the United States
Let's deep on the top list 👇
10 - Java
In the top ten spot we find Java. Job offers in Java mostly require a very high level of experience, also Java frameworks like Spring are top paid in the industry. The average salary for a Java developer is ~$118k per year.
- Salary mean: ~$118k
- Salary median: $117k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 23K jobs
- Keywords: Java.
Go to top paid Java jobs
9 - Python
Python is one’s of the most popular languages nowadays. It is also the Top 9th highest-paid job. Python is a non-typed high level language. It has a full range of utilities, from scripting and tooling to writing entire web applications with Django framework. It is also heavily used in data science.
While the average salary of a python developer is $125K per year, some offers reached the amount of $500K per year.
- Salary mean: ~$125K
- Salary median: $120k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 14K jobs
- Keywords: Python, Django, Flask.
Go to top paid Python jobs.
8 - Swift
Swift is a modern general-purpose language developed by Apple. It has several usages, but the most common, popular usage is for developing iOS and Mac apps. The average salary for a Swift developer is $127k per year.
Go to top paid swift jobs
7 - Go
Since it’s launch in 2007 by Google team members, Go has gained popularity. It’s simple, easy to use and gets things done quickly. Go is heavily influenced by C but also has the memory safety, garbage collection and structural typing major enhancements.
- Salary mean: ~$130k
- Salary median: $128k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 1.2K jobs
- Keywords: Go.
Go to top paid Go jobs
6 - Ruby
Ruby language has been popular for many years and is still rocking. There is pretty high demand and most of it high paid. Ruby is mainly popular for web development, in conjunction with the famous Ruby on Rails framework. It also has other utilities, from scripting and prototyping to game development (using DragonRuby). Given its polyvalence it would never be a bad choice to learn, it is also a high-level language that ends in a fast development of applications (similar to Python).
The median salary ($136k) for a Ruby developer surpasses the mean ($132k). This indicates a robust demand for mid-level and senior Ruby professionals, suggesting that expertise in Ruby often leads to higher-than-average compensation.
- Salary mean: ~$132k
- Salary median: $136k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 3.4K jobs
- Keywords: Ruby, Ruby on Rails.
Go to top paid Ruby jobs
5 - Scala
In the Top five spot, we find Scala. Scala is a high-level language that combines object-oriented and functional programming. It can be compiled to Java bytecode and run on a Java virtual machine (JVM). It was firstly designed to solve some of the ‘flaws’ and criticism made over Java. It has a strong and enthusiast community. It also has a good surrounding libraries, that makes it easy to start with it.
While average Scala developer salary is $135k, some offers reached peaks of approximately $400k per year.
- Salary mean: ~$135k
- Salary median: $130k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 533 jobs
- Keywords: Scala.
Check out top paid Scala jobs
4 - C/C++
C/C++ holds a solid top 4 spot with an average salary of ~$136K per year. Its usage in the industry is widely extended, C++ can be found on video games, servers, databases, space probes and many others. It is also heavily used in the blockchain ecosystem, Bitcoin or the Solidity Smart Contract language are written entirely with C++.
Go to top paid C/C++ jobs
3 - ABAP
ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) rounds out the list as one of the highly valued languages in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) ecosystem for 2023. ABAP is a high-level programming language created by SAP for developing applications on the SAP platform. It has been the backbone for SAP applications since the 1980s, allowing for custom development and modification of SAP applications.
Go to top paid ABAP jobs
2 - Rust
Rust is the top two highest paid languge with an average salary of ~$156k!💸 Rust salaries and popularity are both on the rise. Similar to C++, but with more advanced features like memory safety or safe concurrency, has made it a perfect choice for high performance big applications. Its recent usage in web3/blockchain has also been a key factor. For example, Solana contracts are not made in Solidity, they are made in Rust.
While the average Rust developer salary is $156K per year, some offers reached $500K per year.
- Salary mean: ~$156k
- Salary median: $150k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 197 jobs
- Keywords: Rust.
Go to top paid Rust jobs
1 - Solidity
In the top one spot, as the highest-paid language in 2023 with an average salary of $188K, we find Solidity!🏆 The language invented for the former team behind Ethereum is getting a lot of traction recently. The low candidates there are for the position has made the salaries sky rocket. Solidity is a high-level object-oriented programming language. It is used to write the logic behind the smart contracts that runs in most of the blockchains nowadays.
While the average salary is $188k per year, some offers reached a peak of $750K dollars. So, if you are in web3 and blockchain technologies, learning solidity should be a must.
- Salary mean: ~$188k
- Salary median: $180k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 136 jobs
- Keywords: Solidity, Blockchain, Web3.
Go to top paid Solidity jobs
Full List of Top-Paid Languages in the US
Below is the complete list of average salaries, in dollars, for each programming language in the United States.
Important: Programming languages with less than 100 jobs (with salary) are discarded in the blog, but are included here. Remember again that all jobs are exclusively from the United States.
In the following chart, we present the salary distribution for each programming language in 2023. The blue boxes represent the interquartile range (IQR), the white bar shows the median value, and the orange bar signifies the average value.
How has this study been made?
The main objective of this study is to extract as much valuable information as possible from the scraped jobs data. To achieve this, the following conditions were applied to each job in the dataset:
- The job must have a salary.
- The job's salary should be greater than $10,000 and less than $1 million.
- The job should be from the United States.
- The job can be categorized under one or more programming languages.
After applying these conditions, we found that out of a total of 10 million development jobs, 1.3 million had salaries. Out of that 1.3 million, 230,000 could be categorized under programming languages. Among those 230,000, approximately 86,000 job offers were from the United States.
How does job categorization into programming languages work?
To categorize dev jobs into programming languages, only the title has been used. This is because we want just the jobs that explicitly require a programming language.
For example, a job with the title "Backend developer", even it has stack defined and also description with job requirements, is discarded and does not count for any language. Otherwise, a job with the title "React Developer" would count as JavaScript / TypeScript, and likewise a job with the title "Laravel Developer" would count as PHP.
Is also important to note that one job offer can count for 2 or more languages. For example a job with the title "Full Stack Developer (Django/Angular)" will count for languages Python and JavaScript / TypesScript.
