KEY FINDINGS

SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS

ABOUT THIS REPORT

This salary survey report is based on thousands of data points including survey responses, internal placement data, and jobs registered with Pearson Frank in the last 12 months.

EMPLOYEE PERKS AND BENEFITS

Employee health insurance was the most frequently mentioned benefit (33%), ahead of a bonus (30%). Flexible working (45%) and remote working (43%) were more popular amongst participants than a company pension or pension contribution.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Two-thirds (66%) perform a web development function in their role. Other commonly performed roles include database administration (24%), mobile development (20%), and desktop applications development (20%).

LANGUAGES AND FRAMEWORKS

PRIMARY LANGUAGE IN USE BY RESPONDENTS

OPINIONS ON LANGUAGES AND FRAMEWORKS

We asked respondents to give their thoughts on various languages and frameworks by asking whether they love, like or hate working with them. Alongside Java, PHP and Spring, the most popular languages and frameworks were:

The least popular technologies among users are:

BREAKING INTO THE INDUSTRY

LEARNING TO CODE

Most of our respondents describe themselves as self-taught (85%).

They have used various kinds of formal learning to develop their skills over the years, including:

Self-taught coders also use a variety of less formal information and support, the most popular of which are online communities (85%), official documentation (77%), textbooks (48%) and tutoring/mentoring (36%).

New to coding? We asked our respondents to recommend ways to learn coding, for those who are interested but don’t know where to start. By far the most popular choice was online courses (86%), followed by working through exercises in books (42%). Others made the point that ‘simply doing’ is the best way to learn.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATION

There appears to be little push for formal certification among the professionals who responded to our survey, with two-thirds (68%) holding no certifications at all. Among those that do, no single type of certification stands out as being particularly popular. However, it should be noted by employers that almost three in ten (29%) employees who are looking to move jobs this year cite a lack of training opportunities as a reason to leave.

When it comes to education, 83% of respondents hold the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree or higher. Overall, 78% believe that formal education is important to a developer.

DESIRABLE SKILLS

Three-quarters (74%) of freelancers/contractors who responded to our survey believe that employers should prioritise communication skills when hiring. Other priorities include having a track record of getting things done (60%), knowledge of algorithms and data structures (43%), experience with specific tools used by the employer (36%) and experience with specific project management tools and techniques (31%).

When asked to name the best ways to evaluate a developer, a range of external and internal evaluation techniques were chosen by our respondents:

WORKING ENVIRONMENT

MOVEMENT IN THE CHANNEL

Nearly four in ten (38%) permanent employees who responded to our survey expect to leave their current job in the coming year. A further 27% are unsure whether they will stay or go. Only 35% said they definitely expect to be in their job for the next 12 months.

Respondents who rated their current stress levels as ‘high’ are significantly more likely to seek to move in the next year than those who rate their stress as either moderate or low. Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents who currently experience low stress are significantly more likely than the others to say they will stay in their role for the coming year.

WHY MOVE JOBS?

Among those who expect to move jobs this year, 80% said they are actively looking for a new role. The reasons for moving tend to be related to an unsatisfactory working environment rather than practical factors – only 23% cited a planned move to another country and 8% are facing layoffs/redundancy.

For the rest, top drivers to seek new employment are:

FACTORS INFLUENCING JOB SATISFACTION

Respondents in permanent roles were asked to rate their levels of satisfaction with various aspects of their current job, from ‘Very Satisfied’ to ‘Very Dissatisfied’. Overall, 52% are either satisfied or very satisfied with their current employment.

Looking at average satisfaction levels, the areas that tend to be most positively rated by employees are cultural: colleagues, hours, location, office environment and company culture all score well. However, employees are less happy in relation to the financial aspects of their employment. Salary and benefits, while still edging into an average ‘satisfied’ score, are rated lower than those cultural factors.

Ranking even lower in terms of average satisfaction are factors linked to future prospects. Employees are, on average, neutral to slightly dissatisfied with the training and development on offer at their current role, and even less happy with the career progression opportunities on offer.

BENEFITS

SALARY SATISFACTION

23% of respondents feel that their salary and benefits are adequate reward for the work they do; a further 9% said they are more than adequately rewarded. Conversely, 24% believe that neither their salary nor their benefits are a true reflection of the work they do.

The remaining respondents are partly satisfied, but feel that either their salary (24%) or their benefits (20%) could be improved.

RELOCATION

In total, 59% of respondents said they would consider relocating to another city or country for work. This includes 47% of respondents who are currently based in the UK, 71% from South Africa, 60% from Germany, 39% from Australia, and 67% from Poland.

Among all of those who said they would relocate, 64% would consider moving to an international destination; the rest would only locate within their current country. Willingness to move internationally varies by country: among those currently living in the UK, only 40% would move abroad. In South Africa and Germany, by comparison, 71% and 73% respectively would consider an international move.

The most popular international destinations for UK respondents are:

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

Global data source and validation techniques

The global salary survey information was voluntarily self-reported by a total of 818 Java, web, mobile and PHP professionals, spanning a wide range of job titles, industries, languages, frameworks, and geographic locations from 23 countries.

Each survey response has been validated using robust statistical analysis and automated data validation rules in order to be included in the final results set.

Any data profiles that do not pass our validation rules and statistical analysis, or are deemed questionable, incomplete, or duplicate were removed in order to provide meaningful results.

Our internal teams have verified each Pearson Frank placement data point to ensure 100% accuracy with respect to base salary, bonuses, benefits, employer type, seniority, job title, technology and location.

No data has been artificially aged, nor have any results been extrapolated based on general inflation adjustments, or general wage increase trends. For the purpose of the survey, we will refer to all ‘data points’ as respondents.