There are more than 200 programming languages that one could learn but which are the one that pay the most? And so, the one’s you should start focusing on? From 01-October-2021 to 01-October-2022 (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.
Let's deep on the top list 👇
1 - 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 $151k per year, some offers reached a peak of $1M dollars. So, if you are in web3/blockchain technologies, learning solidity should be a must.
- Salary mean: ~$151k
- Salary median: $145k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 417 jobs
- Keywords: Solidity, Blockchain, Web3.
Go to top paid Solidity jobs
2 - Rust
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 $144K per year, some offers reached $500K per year.
- Salary mean: ~$144k
- Salary median: $140k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 523 jobs
- Keywords: Rust.
Go to top paid Rust jobs
3 - Scala
In the Top three 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 $130k, some offers reached peaks of approximately $400k per year.
- Salary mean: ~$130k
- Salary median: $127k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 616 jobs
- Keywords: Scala.
Check out top paid Scala jobs
4 - 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).
- Salary mean: ~$124k
- Salary median: $130k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 5.6K jobs
- Keywords: Ruby, Ruby on Rails.
Go to top paid Ruby jobs
5 - 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: ~$116k
- Salary median: $130k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 2.3K jobs
- Keywords: Go.
Go to top paid Go jobs
6 - Python
Python is one’s of the most popular languages nowadays. It is also the Top 6th 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 $114K per year, some offers reached the amount of $500K per year.
- Salary mean: ~$114K
- Salary median: $115k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 19K jobs
- Keywords: Python, Django, Flask.
Go to top paid Python jobs.
7 - 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 $114k per year, but there have been offers that reached $230k per year.
Go to top paid swift jobs
8 - C/C++
C/C++ holds a solid top 8 spot with an average salary of ~$109K 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
9 - Java
In the top nine spot we found 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 ~$107k per year.
- Salary mean: ~$107k
- Salary median: $110k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 22K jobs
- Keywords: Java.
Go to top paid Java jobs
10 - Javascript
JavaScript closes the list as the Top ten paid language in 2022. JavaScript is a high-level programming language, that made its first steps running the code of the first websites. Nowadays though, JavaScript is also used for writing entire backends, that run on Node.js or Deno.
The average JavaScript developer salary is ~$105K per year, although some JavaScript offers reached ~$350k.
- Salary mean: ~$105k
- Salary median: $114k
- Jobs Found (with salary): 36k jobs
- Keywords: JavaScript, React, Vue, Angular, NodeJs.
Go to top paid JavaScript jobs
Full top paid languages list
The complete list of average salary in dollars per programming language is shown below.
Important: Programming languages with less than 100 jobs (with salary) are discarded in the blog, although here are listed.
In the next chart we can see the salaries distribution by programming language in 2022. The blue boxes show the interquartile range (IQR), with the white bar indicating the median value and the orange bar indicating the average value.
Jobs distribution
This is the total jobs distribution where the analysis is made from. The majority of the jobs are from United States, but also China and Europe have great number of them. This is important, since salaries also vary heavily from countries. In next posts, we will focus in country specific salaries. Jobs form India have been discarded for this study.
