The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Growth in developer population set back

The population growth of working developers will take a major hit during 2009 in most industrialized economies, according to analyst Evans Data. The researcher said it's dropped growth projections based on estimations made 12 months ago by a whopping 78 per cent for North America, Japan and Western Europe. The impact on "the …

This topic is closed for new posts.
Anonymous Coward
Unhappy

But how much are they paid?

I'm guessing the report has it more-or-less correct in terms of the _number_ of developers, but the wages paid will be the real shock.

1) Western countries can simply move coding activities off-shore, where slaries are much lower.

2) So-called 'free' software has hurt wages. Plenty of IT managers (and Reg readers) think developing code is now an un-paid hobby, not a professional career deserving a professional wage.

Why can't I find the Penguin with devil horns icon?

jeremy
Linux

@AC

Free software has not hurt wages as it generally needs someone to maintain and manage that software.. my work opportunities have increased as a result of what you call 'Free' software.

Perhaps it has hurt your prospects, but its only the 'evil du jour', a few years ago, the internet was hurting because so much was moving on line, perhaps you need to learn to adapt.

Where is the big smiling penguin who has given me so much work... ah here you are...

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

How many developers are there

I am one of 3 developers that are pivotal, i.e. turnover divided by programmers for us is about £70 million per head.

In a team of 40 if you include the peripheral developers, i.e. they are £5m turnover per head for the team including peripheral developers.

In a division of about 200, including support, test scripts etc., i.e. they are about £1 million turnover per head people.

In a company with lots and lots of people who think writing a Javascript onmouseover is software developement... about 70k per head.

If you ask me, there are 5000 pivotal developers on which all the major software depends.

If you ask my colleagues, they'll say about 70000 developers.

If I go down the corridor, and ask one of them, they'll say 300,000.

Frank

re. AC 10:57 - Like I've always said...

"If you ask me, there are 5000 pivotal developers on which all the major software depends.

If you ask my colleagues, they'll say about 70000 developers.

If I go down the corridor, and ask one of them, they'll say 300,000."

If you put three developers on a project, they'll give you three estimates that are wildly different from each other.

This topic is closed for new posts.