Software is the cornerstone of the technology industry. Regardless of the industry, from smartphones to complex enterprise systems, software is the driving force. In navigating the digital age, it's crucial to understand the landscape of software development. This article aims to provide an overview of the trends, practices, and impacts in the field of software development in 2024 through data.
No industry can grow at the speed of software development. The rapid development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, Xi, and the Internet of Things has had a significant impact on many industries, including the field of software development. This is the main reason why the software development industry has continued to grow in recent years.
Original link: https://radixweb.com/blog/software-development-statistics
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作者 | Ravikumar Patel 译者 | 弯月
责编 | 夏萌出品 | CSDN（ID：CSDNnews）
Business combined with cutting-edge software development services tailored to meet specific needs
In this digital age, software plays a key role in helping companies create automation tools, reduce costs, and enhance the customer experience. To demonstrate its huge impact, we've compiled some important software development statistics.
Now, let's get started.
Summary of software development statistics
1) By the end of 2024, the total number of software developers worldwide is expected to reach 28.7 million. It has grown by 3.2 million in the last 4 years. There are nearly 4.3 million software developers in the United States.
2) 84.7% of software development projects are based on enterprise applications. 53.6% of software development projects are based on business automation, and 38.50% are e-commerce projects.
3) By 2024, the IT industry is expected to grow beyond pre-pandemic levels, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5%.
4) The software development market is expected to reach $1.039 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.54% from 2020~2027.
5) About 54% of software engineers claim to be more productive working from home. As the world returns to office culture, this will be an important topic to discuss in 2024.
6) The cost of software development projects ranges from $3,000 ~ $150,000.
7) The development cost of a customer relationship management (CRM) system in 2023 is about $100,000.
8) Employment of software developers in the U.S. will grow by 22% by 2029. As a result, starting with 2024, there are huge opportunities for U.S. software developers.
9) Complex software development projects can cost up to $1 million.
10) JavaScript is the most widely used programming language in the world, with 65.82% of professional developers choosing to use the language.
11) The median annual income for experienced software developers is $107,090.
Overview of the software development market
Do you know how big the software development market is and what the future of software development will look like? Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about the software development market starting in 2024.
12) 84.70% of companies in the software industry focus on developing enterprise applications for their customers.
13) 53.90% of companies are mainly engaged in software projects for business process automation, so in 2024 we will usher in the peak of experience business automation.
14) About 15.40% of companies offer customer relationship management software solutions.
15) 7.70% of software development service providers help customers build, manage, and maintain educational software.
16) Among the surveyed developers, 38.50% are responsible for providing back-end software development as well as front-end web application development solutions for e-commerce owners.
Statistics on the number of software developers
17) Washington State is the highest-paying state for software engineers in the United States, with an average annual salary of $105,406. In addition, this state has the highest percentage of engineers (6.42%) compared to other states.
18) The average age of software developers in the U.S. is 39.8 years old, and 54.2% of them are white.
19) Surprisingly, only 25% of software developers have a degree in computer engineering or computer science.
20) The U.S. occupies an important position in the global technology market, accounting for 33%.
21) In Europe, Germany has the highest number of software developers, with 837,398 professionals.
22) 91.5% of the world's software engineers are male.
23) Washington State is the state with the highest concentration of software development jobs in the United States, with a whopping 51,540 such jobs.
Software development industry statistics
24) 33% of the global technology market is located in the United States.
Despite the sheer size of the U.S. tech and software market, 67% of tech spending occurs overseas, demonstrating the global appeal and demand for tech products and services. Europe is another mainstream, accounting for one-fifth of total global technology spending. At the same time, China has risen rapidly and gained a dominant position in the field of software development in Asia.
Key findings for the software industry in 2024
- In 2024, we will see software marketing become the top investment priority for all software buyers globally, accounting for 28%, second only to IT security (32%).
- In 2024, marketers cite finding new customers (35%) and upskilling employees (32%) as the top two business challenges in the IT industry.
25) The software testing market in APAC is rapidly emerging and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of up to 8% through 2026.
This growth was primarily driven by increased digital adoption in major countries such as China and India. Notably, the Indian government is actively pursuing initiatives to incentivize investment and accelerate digitalization across the country. Moreover, India's focus on IT training has made it the largest software outsourcing hub, as reflected in the current trends in the IT and software industry.
26) Europe is home to about 5.5 million developers.
According to software development employment statistics, Germany leads the workforce in terms of the number of software developers in each country with 837,389 professionals. It is followed by the United Kingdom with 813,500 developers, while France is in third place with 467,454 developers. Hungary and Norway, on the other hand, are at the bottom with 79,075 and 79,112 developers, respectively.
Software Development Trends and Statistics for 2024
27) In the U.S. alone alone, software developer jobs will grow by 22% by 2029.
There are nearly 1.46 million software developers in the U.S. today, but that number varies based on different standards set by various organizations.
28) By 2025, the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to reach more than 75 billion devices worldwide, a three-fold increase compared to 2019.
As a cutting-edge technology in the software industry, the Internet of Things can be seamlessly interconnected across a wide range of machines and devices via the Internet. It has a wide range of applications in various industries, including healthcare, and contributes to the success of remote work organizations to a large extent.
29) Approximately 80% of Fortune 500 companies rely on offshore teams for their day-to-day operations, demonstrating the widespread adoption of this practice.
India is a global leader in software outsourcing. Emerging markets in Asia and Latin America are seeing a growing demand for offshore business, with countries such as the Philippines developing into important offshore hubs. However, India has cemented its position as one of the top choices for offshore teams with its highly competitive pricing, good IT policies, and excellent service, according to overseas software engineering statistics, and it is unlikely to be surpassed by other countries in 2024.
30) Nearly 69% of enterprises have adopted cloud computing technology.
Research shows that another 18% of companies plan to adopt cloud solutions. Driven by the trend of software development, many organizations have seen revenue growth of 53%, and this is expected to increase further in 2024.
31) About 84% of developers consider themselves to be active contributors to open source software.
Open source code is a popular software development trend, and engineers are able to actively participate in such projects by using, modifying, and enhancing the source code. According to the 2024 software development statistics, it's impressive that only 3% of developers have never contributed to open source, and only 13% contribute less than once a year.
32) Linux has been the most popular software development platform in the world and the first choice of 55.9% of professional developers.
While Linux's dominance remains rock-solid, Windows has risen in popularity, becoming the choice of 51.2% of developers. Linux, with its powerful open source nature, has been a driving force in software engineering for many years, with widespread adoption in Android phones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices being one of the examples.
33) Python stands out from many programming languages as the fastest-growing leader, with 70% of machine Xi developers choosing to use Python in their projects.
According to software industry statistics, Python is currently used by 6 million software engineers, and the open source nature of the language has led to widespread adoption, especially in the field of machine Xi. The biggest benefit for machine Xi developers is that Python has a lot of core libraries that can be easily accessed, such as PyTorch, NumPy, and TensorFlow, and Python also excels at automating back-end systems.
Java isn't the fastest-growing language, but it's still a strong contender, with 9.4 million Java developers making up the third-largest programming language community.
34) In terms of software project management tools, JIRA is the most commonly used system, accounting for 39.03% of the market share.
In recent years, most companies have adopted agile methods, which has led to the need for effective project management solutions. Atlassian's comprehensive suite, which includes Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket, has an 18.24% market share. It is followed by Microsoft Project with a market share of 6.01%, and Airtable, also with 6.01%.
Statistics on the time and cost of software development
35) On average, 63% of a company's software development costs are spent on designing and building new software.
36) Nearly a quarter of companies prefer to opt for software development outsourcing services. The main reasons include reduced costs, increased flexibility, reduced time to market, and a large talent pool.
37) Satisfaction levels with outsourced development are relatively low, with only 17.8% of companies reporting absolute satisfaction with the work delivered.
38) A typical software development project takes about 4.5 months to complete and costs $36,000.
39) About 23% of the projects cost more than $60,000 to develop.
40) After the software is built, the subsequent maintenance cost accounts for about 15%~20% of the initial development cost.
41) About 61.60% of the development companies set an average development time of 4~6, while 10.81% of the software companies provide software maintenance and support for more than 6 months.
42) 10.81% of software development companies offer the best software with more than 6 months of maintenance and support.
43) The cost of software development for small software or applications is 30,000~45,000 US dollars, the cost of medium-sized software development projects is 70,000~100,000 US dollars, and the cost of large-scale complex applications is more than 100,000 US dollars.
44) The cost of basic CMS software development is between $20,000~$50,000, including design, some custom features, configuration, etc.
45) ERP software development costs $100,000 or more, depending on the number of features and the size of the company.
46) It takes at least $50,000 to build an e-commerce system from scratch. For more complex solutions, the cost can rise to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
47) The SaaS development cost is 25,000~100,000 USD, and for complex SaaS products, the cost is even higher.
Statistics on the technology used in software development
There are more than 700 programming languages to choose from in the software development industry. Therefore, there are many aspects that businesses and software developers must consider when choosing the right programming language.
Below, let's take a look at the most popular software development techniques and tools.
48) According to a report (https://radixweb.com/blog/top-javascript-usage-statistics), JavaScript is the most popular programming language Xi learning in 2023, with 12.4 million active developers.
49) The second most popular programming language is Python, with 9 million active developers.
50) Java ranks third with 8.2 million developers.
51) In 2023, Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure tied for the most popular and used cloud platforms, with 75% of developers using both platforms. This indicates a promising outlook for global adoption of hyperscale cloud service providers and their enterprise public clouds in 2024.
52) Microsoft Azure is the second most popular cloud platform, accounting for 28.72%.
53) Google Cloud is the third most popular cloud platform, accounting for 26.61%.
Software Development Programming Statistics
Next, we discuss the facts and figures related to software development programming.
54) The average age of software engineers is 39 years old.
55) The number of software engineers working in the private sector is 50% higher than in public sector companies.
56) 22% of software engineers are women and 78% are men.
57) In the U.S., 48.5% of software engineers are white, followed by Asian: 34%, Hispanic or Latino: 8.1%, and unknown: 48%.
59) 97% of applications use open source code, which speaks volumes about the widespread adoption of open source code in the software development community.
60) As a popular internet hosting service for software development, GitHub has a staggering 94 million developers and more than 85.7 million new repositories.
61) The Octoverse 2023 report shows a 38% increase in the number of private projects on GitHub, which account for more than 80% of total GitHub activity, making 2024 the year of GitHub.
62) In 2023, the highest number of people contributed code to open source or OSS for the first time through projects such as freeCodeCamp, First Contributions, and GitHub Education. It's a great environment for developers and businesses looking to adopt and implement GitHub in 2024.
63) GitHub's automation feature, Actions, runs 263 million automation jobs per month and takes more than 41 million build minutes per day.
64) In Asia Pacific, the fastest growing GitHub developer communities are in India, Japan, and Singapore, while the fastest-growing countries in Africa are Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia in South America, and Spain, Portugal, and Poland in Europe. The Octoverse report predicts that by 2027, India will overtake the United States as the largest developer community on GitHub.
65) The software development industry faces a severe talent shortage. Korn Ferry, a global consulting firm, predicts that the shortage could cost the U.S. $162 billion in lost revenue annually by 2030, bringing the global total to $8.5 trillion.
General statistics and facts about software development
Below, we'll introduce the general statistics and facts of software development to give you an idea of the entire software development industry in 2024.
66) The average age of software developers is 25~34 years old.
From the above data, it can be seen that there are many young developers in this market. 48.42% of software developers are between 25~34, and 21.71% of software developers are between 35~44 years old.
67) Ukraine has consolidated its leading position as a destination for web development outsourcing.
According to the latest data, Ukraine has more than 200,000 outsourced programmers with degrees in science, technology and engineering. Technology companies choose Ukrainian suppliers for the efficient use of these IT specialists.
68) Some 24% of executives choose software development outsourcing as a strategic means to stay competitive in a dynamic business environment and acquire established developers at a reasonable cost.
Software talent is in short supply, with only one developer hired for every five positions, highlighting this talent shortage and driving demand for outsourcing solutions. Overseas software development statistics (https://radixweb.com/services/offshore-software-development) highlight that the main challenges of development revolve around capabilities, knowledge sharing, and prioritization.
69) AI integration in the field of software development is a prominent and ongoing trend.
Developers can create better software solutions faster by leveraging deep Xi and advanced machine Xi techniques. Software development trends predict that AI enhancements will generate $2.9 trillion in revenue.
70) The average programming experience for professional developers in the United States is 15.8 years.
According to a survey by Stack Overflow, developers in Australia topped the list with 16.9 years of programming experience, followed closely by the UK with 16.1 years. The Netherlands and Canada ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. Interestingly, nearly one-third of software professionals started their programming journey 5~10 years ago.
71) 61% of software developers use Windows, making it the preferred development environment.
Linux came in second with a developer usage rate of 47%. macOS ranks third in popularity among PC operating systems.
72) 42.65% of software developers choose to use Node.js, while 40.58% prefer ReactJS, a combination that is the most popular technology in web development.
Choosing the right web development framework is crucial in the early stages of a project. According to software development statistics, React .js is one of the most popular frameworks, far outpacing the usage of other web frameworks. jQuery is a second choice for software developers. The top five contenders also include Express, Angular, and VueJS.
73) When hiring developers, the most critical factor is their willingness to learn Xi and their ability to adapt to the company's culture.
The challenge of recruiting is finding highly skilled developers who can add value to the team while also being able to adapt quickly to the changing technology landscape. While technical expertise is crucial, it's interesting to note that nearly 60% of recruiters prioritize soft skills when looking for technical employees.
74) In 2023, the main reason IT leaders choose to outsource is cost reduction, which is seen by about 83% of leaders as a top priority.
Eighty-two percent highlighted the standardization and efficiency of processes, 70 percent mentioned development capabilities, and 59 percent pointed to other important considerations for outsourcing such as driving business value.
Software development has a bright future. The data presented in this article shows the importance of software development for a long time. It's critical for software professionals and business owners to stay on top of what's happening in the industry.