Survey reveals only 11 percent of developers in the UK actively looking for jobs, exposing key challenges for companies looking to hire tech talent in a tough market. This year’s Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey is the largest ever, with over 100,000 developers responding worldwide. Contributor Joel Spolsky, CEO – Stack Overflow.
Developers reveal their optimism for AI and the need for ethical code oversight. Stack Overflow, the world’s largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge and build their careers, today released the Global Developer Hiring Landscape Report, revealing what companies looking to hire tech talent need to know. The report’s data comes from the 2018 Stack Overflow Global Developer Survey, the most extensive survey of the programmer workforce to date, with over 100,000 responses from coders in 183 countries and dependent territories.
“Today, every company is a technology company. Without developers, the economy would not evolve at the pace we’re seeing today” said Stack Overflow CEO, Joel Spolsky. “They are the architects of code that empower our everyday lives, and the people responsible for teaching machines how to think. The findings of this survey are indispensable for businesses, as they look to enable their tech workforce and attract the best developer talent”
Not all developers value salary above all else
What do developers look at when considering new jobs? It differs. Compensation was top of the list for men, but globally, women, gender non-binary and transgender developers rated the office environment and company culture as more important to them than salary when considering a new job. This is especially worth noting for companies looking to boost their demographic diversity. What do developers most want to know about prospective jobs? Top of the global list is salary details, followed by details of which technologies they’d be working with, with opportunities for professional development coming in third.
Developers are not actively looking for jobs
Over 94 percent of professional developers in the UK are employed at least part-time, making the developer employment rate much higher than those of other professions. Only 11 percent of developers in the UK are actively looking for a job, with 56 percent not actively looking, putting additional pressure on employers competing to hire tech talent.
But it’s not all bad news for recruiters. UK developers change jobs frequently: 33 percent of them changed jobs less than one year ago, while 21 percent changed jobs between 1 and two years ago. It’s important to plan hires ahead: a third of developers think it takes new recruits at least one month to become fully productive, 45 percent think 1-3 months and 17 percent 3-6 months.
Developers are young and restless
Coding is a young profession: 30 percent of developers have only been working professionally for under two years, with 27 percent working between 3 and 5 years
Developers are hungry for change and progression: a third of them (34 percent) see themselves working in a different or more specialised role in five years’ time, while a quarter (26 percent) want to start up their own company. Developers are satisfied with their career choices: over half (55 percent) were moderately to extremely satisfied with their jobs and careers.
Developers are excited about artificial intelligence
Developers are mostly optimistic about the future possibilities offered by AI with almost 3/4 of respondents saying that they are overall more excited than worried about it. Automation of jobs is the least significant danger of artificial intelligence according to developers, with over 80 percent saying that is not their biggest worry. The concerns that developers have depend on the kind of coding work they do: data scientists are 1.5 times more likely to consider issues around algorithmic fairness dangerous.
