Traditional Programming Language Job Trends – February 2010

PLEASE REVIEW THE MORE RECENT VERSION FOR AUGUST 2010.

About 6 months ago, I looked the the job trends for various programming languages. Given that TIOBE released their yearly programming language rankings, I figured I should update the job trends again. In this update, I will use the TIOBE rankings to determine what languages to include. Based on those rankings, I have changed the list from Cobol, Java, C++, C#, Visual Basic and Perl to Java, C++, C#, Delphi, Objective C, Perl and Visual Basic. The Delphi inclusion is purely due to the TIOBE ranking and has nothing to do with any opinion I may hold.

First, let’s look at the job trends from Indeed.com:

The first thing you can see in this graph is that all of the languages have stayed fairly flat or declined since a peak around November 2008. You can also see that the Delphi line has decreased and is now below Objective C. Mostly there has not been a significant change in the past six months.

However, in the last job trends post I noted that SimplyHired had different short term trends and this still holds true:

This graph shows a similar peak in October of 2008, but shows a significant amount of growth for most of the languages from a July 2009 low. Again, Delphi is not really a factor in the graph. C++ still maintains a slight lead over its C# cousin. Objective C is still trailing significantly as it is primarily used for Apple development.

Something that I must have missed in my last job trends report is the relative scaling from Indeed. This provides an interesting trend graph based on job growth:

These growth trends are significantly more interesting. Three major points of interest are obvious. Objective C is growing rapidly, and likely will continue this trend with the addition of the Apple iPad. C# is also showing significant growth when compared to the other languages. Lastly, Visual Basic’s demise is clearly shown by the slim and declining growth trend.

What does all this mean? Well, Java is still hot and continues to grow. C++ may never die and C# is growing but does not seem to be replacing C++. Perl continues to stick around. Delphi may be popular according to TIOBE, but there is limited job potential. Finally, Objective C will be an interesting trend to follow over the next year as development for the iPhone and iPad continues to gain steam.

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9 thoughts on “Traditional Programming Language Job Trends – February 2010”

  1. As per the graph, Java is supposedly at the top of the market job trends. And it is so considering the vast amount of Java jobs available. However I suppose this cannot be equated with being the best or even the highest paying programming languages. Infact, the more number of jobs available, the lesser the competition and so lesser packages.

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  2. Kevin

    I did not want to make any “best” or “highest paying” remarks mainly because the data is not readily available. Also, the type of job is a very important consideration as well. Contract jobs and full time employee jobs are significantly different from one another.

    Also, it is hard to justify whether a large number of java jobs will lessen the price paid for those jobs. It could be that it is in such great demand, that positions cannot be filled. That creates a heavy demand for quality developers, which would raise their packages. Without having a complete view of the job market (jobs posted, filled and compensation packages), you really cannot make many inferences except for current demand.

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