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Confidential
Early access disclaimer:
You’ve been granted early access to this report, please do
not share it publicly. We will be officially releasing it shortly.2021 State of the Software Developer Nation
Contents
Click titles to jump to each section
4 Introduction 33 Job Search
Candidate experience matters when more than 50% of
developers will stop interviewing after a negative experience.
5 Skills and Tech Trends
Developers are super excited about the AI and Cloud engineering
industry – Python becomes the language of choice in 2021. 42 Demographics
15 Careers 45 Methodology
When it comes to developer salaries, bigger companies usually
mean bigger paychecks – but location, experience, and industry
46 About OfferZen
all play a role too.
25 Education and Learning
More than half of developers love to code outside of their
nine-to-five – and it doesn’t take a degree to earn decent bucks.
3Introduction
This past year, although a tough one, has highlighted the robustness Now more than ever before, companies need to equip themselves with
of companies that were able to take their operations online, empower data and insights to effectively attract, nurture, and retain top developers.
remote work, and, ultimately, adopt tech to power their processes,
services, and products. As a tech job marketplace, we interact and collaborate with hundreds of
developers every day, even during the time of a global pandemic. With the
Whether it’s the family owned grocery store quickly adapting to offering help of survey responses from over 3,500 developers, we’ve taken a close
online ordering and an ‘eat at home’ experience or large corporates look at what developers want, need, and look for in their careers. The data
adopting digital tools to enable fully remote teams; tech is making shows that coding is seen as a creative craft; developers genuinely love
businesses antifragile. to code, and that they prioritise career growth and learning – even above
salary – when it comes to choosing a job opportunity.
At the same time, the acceleration of existing trends in tech – especially
remote work, eCommerce, and digitisation – means that top developers Ultimately, companies need to make room for software development as a
are now more in demand than ever and have an increasing number of creative discipline if they want to give developers what our data shows they
job opportunities available to them. value in their careers: challenging projects, opportunities to learn, and the
space to build impactful software.
So while companies are enjoying the increased talent pool that comes
with hiring for remote roles, they now also have to be cognisant of the I hope that publishing this report will continue to fuel meaningful
fact that they are competing globally for talent. The same globalisation conversations in the developer community and give companies the
trend, that completely changed the manufacturing of physical goods, data they need to support their tech teams in building thriving careers.
has come to tech.
Malan Joubert
OfferZen Co-founder & CEO
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 4Skills and
Tech Trends
Developers are super excited about the AI and Cloud
engineering industry – Python becomes the language
of choice in 2021.
Back to contents 5Skills and Tech Trends The future of tech: AI and cloud-based engineering Back to contents 6
Skills and Tech Trends The future of tech: AI and cloud-based engineering
2021’s Hottest industry for developers? AI and cloud engineering
We asked developers which industry they thought was
Top 8 most exciting industry according to developers up and coming in 2021 and the AI and cloud engineering
industry came out on top followed by FinTech and
66.5% AI/Cloud/Enterprise Infrastructure cybersecurity.
35.4% FinTech The focus on cloud engineering, FinTech, cybersecurity,
gaming and e-commerce is unsurprising as so many aspects
32.7% Cybersecurity of life and work have gone remote in 2020 – the increase in
online shopping, gaming, and importance of online security
26.1% Robotics
makes these industries more attractive than ever.
18.8% Gaming
18.4% eCommerce/D2C
17% Crypto
16% Agritech
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 7Skills and Tech Trends The future of tech: AI and cloud-based engineering
Developers want to learn Python in 2021
An overwhelming number of developers want to learn Python
Top 8 languages developers want to work with in 2021 in 2021 as a way to enter the AI and cloud engineering space.
This also means that Python has moved up the ranks: It
38% Python
has taken the first place from our 2019 report’s number one,
22% TypeScript JavaScript, which is now in third place behind TypeScript.
21.6% JavaScript
21.6% Go
20.8% C#
16.3% Java
14.8% Kotlin
12.3% SQL
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 8Skills and Tech Trends The future of tech: AI and cloud-based engineering
Developers in cloud-based services feel the most confident about
their career growth
We asked developers to share how confident they feel
Developer confidence in career growth at current company about the career growth in their current role.
Interestingly, developers in cloud-based solutions and
71.4% Cloud-based solutions/services
services were more confident about their potential career
70.6% Consulting growth than developers in other industries. This is yet
another data point that underlines how promising the
67.1% FinTech services AI and cloud engineering industry is for developers.
65.2% Telecommunications
64.5% Saas development
63.6% Digital agency/services
63.3% Data and analytics
62.4% Retail/eCommerce
61.5% Web development/design
60.2% Media/advertising/entertainment
56.8% Healthcare technology
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 9Skills and Tech Trends The future of tech: AI and cloud-based engineering
JavaScript continues to be the most used developer language
In 2019’s Developer Nation report, JavaScript was
Top 6 languages developers currently work with most the most used language and this year is no different!
62.1% JavaScript Another interesting insight: About half of the developers
who work in SQL also work in either JavaScript or TypeScript.
49.3% SQL It seems that front-end developers are also doing database
and other server-side work.
39.2% C#
30.1% Java
28.5% Python
28.3% TypeScript
See split by seniority on the next page >
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 10Skills and Tech Trends The future of tech: AI and cloud-based engineering
JavaScript continues to be the most used developer language
Top 6 languages developers currently work with most by seniority
Senior Intermediate Junior
JavaScript
63.1%
62.5%
60.7% SQL
55.5%
46.2% C#
45.9%
Java
41.3%
Python
39.1%
38.4%
TypeScript
35.5%
34.7%
30.7%
30.5%
29.2%
28.4%
24.5%
24.3%
22.6%
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 11Skills and Tech Trends Not all frameworks and languages are created equal Back to contents 12
Skills and Tech Trends Not all frameworks and languages are created equal
Developers want to work with React and Angular – but most don’t
Most developers want to learn to work with JavaScript
Top 5 most used vs most desired frameworks frameworks or libraries like React and Angular in 2021.
Actual use Desired
However, despite this desire, the majority of surveyed
developers are actually working in Microsoft frameworks,
29.6%
ASP.NET ASP.NET and .Net Core – with Angular and React in third
11%
and fifth position respectively.
28.8%
.NET Core
18.6%
26.8%
Angular
22.4%
25.7%
Node.js
19%
22.9%
React
29.6%
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 13Skills and Tech Trends Not all frameworks and languages are created equal
PHP is the most disliked coding language among developers
Developers may love to code – but that doesn’t mean
Top 5 languages developers dislike working in that all languages are created equal. This is especially
true for PHP – which is predominantly used for website
Disliked by everyone Disliked by developers who use it
development and maintenance and is the most disliked
language amongst developers.
25.5%
PHP
12.6%
In fact, it turns out that 12% of PHP developers don’t like
18.5% coding in PHP and C++ developers are the most likely to
C++
16.8% dislike their own coding language.
17.6%
Java
8.5%
16.7%
JavaScript
12.8%
13.7%
C
12.5%
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 14Careers
When it comes to developer salaries, bigger companies
usually mean bigger paychecks – but location,
experience, and industry all play a role too.
Back to contents 15Careers Location and industry mat ter when it comes to salar y Back to contents 16
Careers Location and industry matter when it comes to salary
Developers earn more in Cape Town
When it comes to developer salaries, it turns out that Cape
Average developer salary by location Town is the place to be. Developers in the mother city earn
the highest average salaries throughout their careers when
Cape Town Johannesburg Pretoria
compared to developers in Johannesburg or Pretoria.
R100k
Average Gross Monthly Salary (ZAR)
R80k
R60k
R40k
R20k
R0
0-1 1-2 2-4 L
4-6 6-10 10-15 15+
Years of experience
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 17Careers Location and industry matter when it comes to salary
The bigger the company, the bigger the salary
The general trend seems to be that as company size grows,
so does the average developer salary. Developers who work
at companies of 500 employees or more tend to outearn
their peers at smaller firms.
However, this doesn’t take equity into account which is
a popular benefit for attracting developers to smaller
companies.
See graph on the next page >
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 18Careers Location and industry matter when it comes to salary
The bigger the company, the bigger the salary
Average developer salary by company size
2-10 11-50 51-200 201-500 500+
R100k
R80k
Average Gross Monthly Salary (ZAR)
R60k
R40k
R20k
R0
0-2 L
2-4 4-6 6-10 10+
Years of experience
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 19Careers Location and industry matter when it comes to salary
FinTech and cloud engineering are the best paying industries
for developers
Developers in FinTech are earning some of the highest
average salaries across the different industries – which
makes sense when considering that the FinTech industry
is typically comprised of larger companies.
For developers who don’t want to go this route, cloud-based
solutions and consulting are other well-paying industries.
See graph on the next page >
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 20Average developer salary by industry
FinTech services Cloud-based solutions/services Retail/eCommerce Telecommunications
Consulting Data and analytics Web development or design SaaS development
R80k
Average Gross Monthly Salary (ZAR)
R60k
R40k
R20k
R0
0-2 2-4 4-6 6-10 10+
Years of experience
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 21Careers The big bucks are in niche skills Back to contents 22
Careers The big bucks are in niche skills
Ruby is the highest paying coding language
It’s no secret that high-demand skills in short supply
generally earn higher salaries. If developers want to earn
more, they should work with niche languages like Go or Ruby.
See graph on the next page >
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 23Careers The big bucks are in niche skills
Ruby is the highest paying coding language
Average developer salary by language
TypeScript Ruby Python PHP Kotlin JavaScript Go Bash
R100k
R80k
R60k
R40k
R20k
R0
0-2 2-4 4-6 6-10 10+
Years of experience
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 24Education
and Learning
More than half of developers love to code outside of
their nine-to-five – and it doesn’t take a degree to earn
decent bucks.
Back to contents 25Education and Learning Developers genuinely love coding and continuous learning Back to contents 26
Education and Learning Developers genuinely love coding and continuous learning
Over 50% of developers code as a hobby
“I spend significant amounts of time coding as a hobby or on side-projects.”
Agree 55.8%
Neutral 25.4%
Disagree 18.8%
Coding isn’t all fun and games – or is it? If you ask 56% of the developers who took our survey, they’d say ‘yes!’. Coding is a creative discipline and most
developers are keen to play outside of their nine-to-five. In fact, regardless of industry, age or company size, coding as a hobby is common amongst at least
50% of developers
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 27Education and Learning Developers genuinely love coding and continuous learning
Younger developers want to learn new languages every few months
Younger developers seem to be focused on developing
a broader skill set by learning a new language every few
months.
This changes over the years though: Older developers are
less likely to add a new language to their skillset as they
become more specialised, but even they want to learn
something new regularly!
See graph on the next page >
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 28Education and Learning Developers genuinely love coding and continuous learning
Younger developers want to learn new languages every few months
Frequency at which developers learn a new language by age
Every few months Once a year Once every few years
100%
80%
Percentage of respondents
60%
40%
20%
0%
18-20 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50
Age (years)
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 29Education & Learning A developer’s education is what they make of it Back to contents 30
Education and Learning A developer’s education is what they make of it
One fifth of developers don’t have a university degree
Highest level of education attainment for developers
Undergraduate
43%
Honours
20.5%
Incomplete
university
High school 12.2%
Masters
8.2%
6.5%
None PHD
Elementary
1.4% 0.6%
0.1%
Job specs that require a university degree are missing out on more than 20% of developer talent. More specifically, 10% of surveyed developers didn’t get a
formal tertiary education and 13% of developers started university, but didn’t finish their degrees.
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 31Education and Learning A developer’s education is what they make of it
Developers without degrees can match the earnings of their
degreed peers later on in their careers
Junior developers with a degree earn more than those
Average developer salary by highest education level without but as they pass the fourth year of their career,
High school graduate I started university but didn’t finish having a degree does not make a statistical difference
Undergraduate (Bachelors or equivalent) Honours graduate to their income anymore.
R100k
What’s more, not all degrees are created equal, at least
in early career stages. Junior and intermediate developers
R80k with an honours degree earn more than those with just
an undergrad degree. However, again, the more senior
Average Monthly Salary (ZAR)
a developer becomes the less impact their degree has
R60k
on their salary.
R40k
R20k
R0
0-1 1-2 2-4 4-6 6-10 10-15 15+
Years of experience coding professionally
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 32Job Search
Candidate experience matters when more than 50%
of developers will stop interviewing after a negative
experience.
Back to contents 33Job Search Developers prioritise career growth and learning opportunities Back to contents 34
Job Search Developers prioritise career growth and learning opportunities
Growth and learning opportunities are the number one reason
developers stay in their job
Growth and access to learning opportunities are the
Top 8 reasons developers stay in their current role number one reason developers stay in their job, closely
followed by a good work-life balance and company culture.
52.5% Growth opportunities
In fact, there’s more to a good job than just money: Work-life
50.9% Work-life balance balance, company culture, and awesome team members
all trump current and future earnings when it comes to
48.1% Company culture career longevity for developers.
43.9% Colleagues
36.5% Future salary potential
25% Current salary
22% Cutting edge tech stack
21.4% Great benefits
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 35Job Search Developers prioritise career growth and learning opportunities
Developers want challenging projects and opportunities to learn
new skills
So what does career growth actually look like to a
Top factors developers want for career growth developer?
For most, it’s the opportunity to tackle a challenging
56% Challenging projects
project – most likely because this comes with heaps
48% New languages and frameworks of learning opportunities. Second on the career growth
wishlist is the opportunity to work with a new language
40% Mentors/coaching
or framework – again, more learning!
34% Company growth projections
34% Availability of training
25% Well-defined career path
17% Options to switch career paths
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 36Job Search Developers prioritise career growth and learning opportunities
1 in 3 developers aren’t super confident about career growth at their
current company
“I feel I can develop my career at my current company.”
Agree 65%
Neutral 19.8%
Disagree 12%
Although developers place so much value on growth within their careers, it appears that not every developer feels that their current company has this in
store for them.
We asked developers to rate the statement: ‘I feel I can develop my career at my current company’. One third responded as either ‘neutral’ or ‘disagree’.
Interestingly, developers at very large companies are marginally more likely to feel they can grow at their current company.
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 37Job Search The majority of developers are staying in their current jobs – for now Back to contents 38
Job Search The majority of developers are staying in their current jobs – for now
1 in 3 developers are looking to move jobs in the next 12 months
33% of developers surveyed are looking to change jobs
Job search timelines of developers in the next three to twelve months – with 9% of these
developers already looking for work.
9.1% Currently looking for work
On the other hand, 23% of developers would still like to
23.9% Looking to move in the next 3-12 months be working at the same company in the next five years.
15.9% Working at the same company this time next year
22.2% Working at the same company in 2 years’ time
22.8% Working at the same company in 5 years’ time
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 39Job Search Companies need to care about candidate experience to hire top developers Back to contents 40
Job Search Companies need to care about candidate experience to hire top developers
1 in 2 developers have discontinued a hiring process after a
negative interview experience
Companies who don’t raise the bar on their recruitment
“Have you discontinued an interview processes could miss out on more than half of developers.
process due to a negative experience?”
In fact, 55% of developers reported that they have not
proceeded with a hiring process after having a negative
interview experience.
21%
Yes
55% No
Has never had a negative experience
24%
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 41Demographics
The data in this report does not claim to be representative of the In some cases, we decided to exclude insights on gender and ethnicity
entire South African developer population. Any time the word because we felt that we could not do these important topics justice in
‘developer’ is used, it refers to the group of developers who the short-form format of this report. We are, however, planning to
took our #SADevNation survey in 2020. deep-dive into these demographics in the coming months.
In terms of location, we only used Johannesburg, Pretoria, and
Cape Town in location comparisons due to sample size. In cases
where no data slicing occurs, all 3519 valid responses were
included. In order to shed light on survey participant characteristics,
we’ve included the demographic breakdown of all 3519 valid
responses below.
Back to contents 42Industries developers currently work in Age
25% FinTech services 0.6% 18-20 years
12% Saas development 21.9% 21-25 years
11% Web development/design 40.2% 26-30 years
10% Consulting
19.5% 31-35 years
9% Cloud-based solutions/services
11% 36-40 years
6% Data and analytics
3.9% 41-45 years
6% Retail/eCommerce
1.7% 46-50 years
4% Telecommunications
0.9% 51-55 years
3% Healthcare technology
0.1% 56-60 years
3% Media/advertising/entertainment
0.2% 60+ years
3% Digital agency/services
2% EdTech
Back to contents 43Race Gender
47.1% White/European descent 83.6% Male
35.4% Black 14.4% Female
6.5% Coloured 1% Non-binary, genderqueer/gender non-conforming
2.8% Other 0.4% Other
2.7% South Asian 0.1% Transgender
1.5% East Asian 0.5% Did not specify
2% Did not specify
Coding Experience Location
5.2% 0-1 years 37.9% Cape Town
7% 1-2 years 35.9% Johannesburg
27.4% 2-4 years 15.2% Pretoria
21% 4-6 years 3.2% Durban
17.8% 6-10 years 2.8% Stellenbosch (incl. Cape Winelands)
11.9% 10-15 years 0.9% Port Elizabeth
9.8% 15+ years
Back to contents 44Methodology
OfferZen conducted a survey to find out more about developers’ Data was anonymised in accordance with GDPR guidelines
skills, work experience and job search behaviour. A total of 4922 and is housed separate to any and all of OfferZen’s platform
people took the online survey between 6 October and 20 October data. Percentages may not always add to 100% due to rounding.
2020. Of these responses, 3519 responses were counted as valid
because they were from developers who are currently employed Salary in this report refers to gross salary before tax and excludes
or have work experience in South Africa. benefits. Statistical analysis was conducted to verify insights
regarding salaries and we have only included claims where
We hosted the survey itself on Typeform and recruited respondents we have at least 90% confidence.
via emails sent to more than 30 000 software makers in the OfferZen
community and social media posts to the public.
Sign up to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent 45About OfferZen
OfferZen is a tech talent marketplace by developers for
developers. Our platform matches top software talent with
exciting opportunities at companies, but this effort actually
encompasses a much wider mission: To help developers
and their teams thrive in the tech ecosystem.
Over the last five years, this mission has manifested in
a multitude of ways from our core business of helping
software makers find awesome new jobs, to hosting local
maker evenings and tech events or helping makers share
their experiences on our blog. We want to help build an
inclusive, transparent, and thriving tech ecosystem.
Sign up to OfferZen to Find a tech job or Hire tech talent
Back to contents 46You can also read
