World Wide Population of Young Developers, age 30 and younger, Tops 5.5 million

Back in April 2017, Evans Data recently reported that “Software Developers Getting Younger, More Gender Diverse“. The median age of today’s software developers has decreased overall on a worldwide basis and the number of women developers has increased, according to Evans Data’s recently released Developer Marketing 2017 survey report. This week, Evans Data reports that the world wide population of younger developers age 30 and younger has topped 5.5 million according to Evans Data’s newly released Developer Population and Demographics Study. The bi-annual study builds on over ten years of trended data, exhaustive primary and secondary research and a sophisticated model to estimate current developer populations and make projections for the future.

Younger Developers

I can remember seeing more younger faces in my audiences during my many visits to developers in South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Costa Rica and Argentina. While I would also see older developers on all of my stops, especially in the US, Germany and UK, it was always energizing to see so many new and young developers.

I also have had numerous opportunities to visit college campuses and see the next generation of developers learning new technologies, methods, languages, platforms, services, devices and frameworks. I always feel younger, when I step into a computer science and software engineering lab at a university, college, coding boot camp, hackathon and meetup. For any developer relations professionals who are feeling tired or a bit older, go visit a coding camp or a college campus on one our your tours. You’ll forget the miles and lack of sleep.

In the opening session at this week’s Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC 2017), CEO Tim Cook showed two pictures of iOS app developers. The youngest was from Australia aged 10 years old with 6 apps in the app store. The other developer was from Japan with one app in the app store and was 82 years young.

 

Developers 30 and younger account for more than a million more developers than those older than 45. However, the largest concentration of developers is between 30 and 45 years of age. The APAC region has a particularly large percent of developers in the youngest age categories, while developers in North America and EMEA tend to be older.

Also by 2021, India is projected to be the country with the largest software developer population worldwide, topping the United States, which currently has the largest countrywide developer population. China is projected to continue to be third in developer population. Both growth predictions when coupled with the current relative ages by region show a rejuvenation of the software development community worldwide.

“It’s natural to see the population numbers of young developers increasing in the emerging regions,” said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp. “Not only are they younger in comparison to other regions, but those emerging regions are showing a total population growth rate that is higher than the EMEA region or North America.”

Evans Data Corp’s Global Development Population and Demographics Study is the de facto standard in developer population estimates. The study, which is now in its 22nd edition, estimates not only current software developer populations across four major regions and forty different countries, but also overlays global primary research onto the population numbers to show numbers of developers forecast to adopt technologies now and in the future.

See the complete Global Developer Population and Demographic Study 2017 Vol. 1 Table of Contents and Methodology here: Table of Contents.

Evans Data recommends clients use this survey in combination with it’s companion survey series; the Global Development Survey series, in order to completely understand the full scope and complexity of the developer layout worldwide. Knowing the demographic, firmographic and psychographic  makeup of your developer population, their interests, and their use of technology will help you tailor your developer marketing outreach worldwide, regionally and locally.