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In this blog, we’ll present the best data available from many of the world’s biggest markets for software developers on the average salary range commanded by G0 developers. Go, or Golang as the programming language is often referred to (it’s actually called just Go but Golang was mistakenly popularised because the open source language’s first site’s url was go-lang.com) is, with Java and Node.js, one of the most popular choices for back end development.
Source: StackOverflow Developer Survey 2022
An open source project originally developed by Google, Go is generally seen as best suited to large apps, cloud interfaces, network apps, and microservices. Scalability is one of its major strengths. The most recent Stackoverflow Developer Survey suggests almost 12% of professional software developers have used Go, making it one of the most used contemporary technologies. The TIOBE Index also ranks it as the 15th most used programming language.
If you are a Go developer and want to benchmark your current salary with averages in your home country or internationally, you will find data here from the best publically available sources around the world on average Go developer salary ranges. The markets we will cover are:
- Germany
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- Eastern Europe
- India
- USA
Keep in mind that the data sources used typically trail real-time market conditions for IT specialist salaries by up to a year. With particularly high levels of salary inflation over the past year, realistic salaries could easily be up to 30% higher than figures quoted here.
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Average international Go developer rates – how much more does it cost to work with an IT outsourcing partner than hiring directly?
You may also be benchmarking international Go developer salary ranges as an employer. If you have taken the strategic decision to work with an IT outsourcing company rather than employing Go developers directly on full-time, permanent employment contracts, you should budget to average rates rather than salaries.
You can approximately budget Go developer rates by adding 20% to 30% on to the average international salary ranges we’ll show here, depending on the geographies your outsourcing partner hires in. That’s the usual margin of outsourcing providers and while it means the headline monthly cost of a Go developer is higher, the added flexibility outsourcing offers, and avoidance of recruitment costs, can mean it can often lead to savings when overall expenses are calculated.
Average Go developer salary in Germany
Germany is Europe’s largest economy and second-largest jobs market for IT specialists like software developers. It’s also a high salary economy, so let’s see how much Go developers based in Germany make. The German salary data portal gehalt.de estimates that the average Golang developer salary range, covering the middle 50 percentile, falls between €3418 a month or €42,379 a year and €4838 a month or €59,993 a year.
Source: Gehalt.de
Data from the Stepstone.de jobs portal is very similar, putting the median salary for a Go developer in Germany €48,400 a year or €4033 a month within an average range of €42,300 to €59,700 a year or €3525 to €5269 a month.
The jobs portal de.talent.com shows a broader range that also spans more senior Go roles which it indicates can offer salaries of over €7000 (€7083) a month or €85,000 a year. de.talent’s Go developer salary range starts at €4167 a month or €50,000 per annum and estimates the median Go developer salary in Germany at a slightly higher €5625, compared to our other two data sources.
It should be noted that the range is based on the relatively small data set of 14 Go developer salaries. Despite that, our experience would suggest that the higher numbers here are closer to the actual market and, if anything, probably still conservative after recent salary inflation.
Source: de.talent.com
Average Go developer salary in Switzerland
Well known as one of the highest salary economies in the world, it can be presumed that Go developers based over the border in Switzerland earn considerably more than their German peers. But let’s see how much more.
ch.talent.com data is not especially helpful here with just a single salary of CHF130,000 (€134,929) a year or CHF10,833 (€11,244) a month quoted. Another Swiss jobs portal, SwissDevJobs.ch, which specialises in IT and software development positions, offers more insight.
Its data shows a median salary of CHF105,000 (€108,981) a year for Go developers working in Switzerland, which works out at CHF8750 (€9082) a month. Go developers earning in the bottom 10 percentile for the role in Switzerland still take home a strong CHF85,000 (€88,223) a year or CHF7083 (€7352) a month while those in the top ten percentile earn up to CHF132,500 (€137,524) a year or CHF11,042(€11,461) a month.
Source: SwissDevJobs.ch
Average Go developer salary in the United Kingdom
The UK is the largest European jobs market for IT specialists including software developers, despite trailing the size of Germany’s economy overall thanks to the latter’s strong manufacturing sector. Let’s see how the average Go developer salary range compares.
This time the data set available on uk.talent.com is significant and based on 1667 salaries, which should mean it represents a good overview of the average Go developer salary range in the UK. The median Go developer salary in the UK is put at £65,000 (€76,216) a year or £5417 (€6352) a month.
More junior Go developer roles in the UK start at £50,000 (€58,628) a year or £4167 (£4886) a month and rise to £81,458 (€95,514) a year or £6788 (€7959) a month for senior positions.
Source: uk.talent.com
Another good data source for UK-based developer salaries is the specialist portal ITjobsWatch.co.uk. Its data shows demand for Go developers has been rising strongly over the past few years with over 5000 developer positions citing go advertised over the 6 months to the end of August 2022 compared to just over 3000 a year earlier and less than 1000 over the same period 2 years ago.
Based on almost 2000 quoted salaries, the data puts the median average Go developer salary in the UK at £80,000 (€93,804) a year or £6667 (€7817) a month. The lowest paid Go developer roles in the bottom tenth percentile command an annual salary of £50,000 (€58,628) a year or £4167 (€4886) a month. The best paid positions to cite Go expertise, those in the top tenth percentile, can offer salaries of up to £107,500 (€126,050) a year or £8958 (€10,504) a month.
Interestingly, while the portal’s data shows salary inflation of 14.29% for Go developers earning the median salary for the programming language, there has actually been salary deflation for the top tenth percentile who earn an average £5000 a year less compared to last year. Overall, UK-based developers have seen impressive salary inflation of 31.25% year-on-year, with growth powered by sharp raises for professionals earning salaries in the bottom twenty-fifth percentile.
Source: ITjobsWatch.co.uk
Average Go developer salary in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a broad umbrella term that is generally understood to cover the myriad of European countries that were either part of or fell under the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence between the end of the Second World War and its collapse in 1989. As a general rule, these countries still typically have (with significant variation) lower wage economies than those of Western Europe and North America.
Over the three decades since most of the countries of Eastern Europe moved towards democratic capitalism, their economies have become increasingly integrated into the global economy. Despite their political and economic integration with the West, Eastern European countries also still benefit from a strong tradition in mathematics that has seen them become particularly rich seams of IT and tech talent.
With average salaries, tax and overall costs still generally significantly lower than in Western Europe, the combination of talented IT specialists and cost efficiencies has seen Eastern Europe develop as an extremely popular IT outsourcing market over the past couple of decades. In recent years the salary gap between especially senior IT professionals based in Eastern Europe and their peers in the West has contracted considerably. But it still exists and access to talented programmers and lower general costs have seen many Western technology companies set up R&D and development hubs in Eastern Europe.
Many others who don’t have the scale or experience to build and run their own operations in Eastern Europe recruit remote IT specialists based in the region via IT outsourcing partners. For a snapshot of how the average Go developer salary varies between Eastern Europe and the high salary economies we cover with this study, we’ll look at data from the region’s two largest markets – Poland and Ukraine.
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Average Go developer salary in Poland
Poland is the largest labour market for IT specialists in Eastern Europe with an estimated 430,000 employed in the country compared to about 275,000 in pre-war Ukraine. Let’s see how much the average Go developer salary is in Poland.
Data from pl.talent.de, based on 21 quoted salaries, indicates the average annual salary for a Golang developer in Poland is just PLN60,000 (€12,639) a year, rising to PLN98,763 (€20,804) for more senior roles. However, our experience would suggest those figures are very much inaccurate.
Source: pl.talent.com
Our experience is also backed up by the salaries quoted by live job ads for Go developers listed on pl.talent.com. The screenshot below shows junior Go developer roles in Poland offer salaries of between PLN5000 (€1053) and PLN10,000 (€2106) a month or PLN60,000 (€12,636) and PLN120,000 (€25,272) a year, which is far more realistic.
Source: pl.talent.com
Live job ads published on NoFluffJobs.com show current offers for senior Go developers offering up to PLN32,000 (€6741) a month or PLN384,000 (€80,888) a year, which is roughly in line with our experience on the Polish jobs market. Mid-level Go developers in Poland can expect a monthly salary of roughly PLN17,000-PLN22,000 (€3581-€4634) or PLN204,000-PLN264,000 (€42,972-€55,610) a year.
Source: NoFluffJobs.com/pl/
Average Go developer salary in Ukraine
Despite the ongoing war with Russia, Ukraine’s strong IT outsourcing sector has proved itself remarkably robust. Before the start of the war, there were an estimated 275,000 IT specialists working in Ukraine, most of them for Western employers. A large majority of these specialists continue to work uninterrupted from safe regions of the country. Let’s see how much those with expertise in Go earn.
Data from the specialist Ukrainian tech jobs portal djinni.co indicates an average salary range of between $3500 (at the time of writing the dollar and euro have exact parity) and $6000 a month or $42,000 and $72,000 a year. That’s in line with our experience on the Ukrainian market for Go developers, with the median average salary somewhere between $4000-$4500 a month or $48,000-$54,000.
Senior Go developers in Ukraine can earn $6,000-$7500+ a month or $72,000-$90,000+.
Source: Djinni.co
Average Go developer salary in India
India is renowned as a huge IT outsourcing market with the size of its tech talent pool big enough to put even Eastern Europe in the shade. Salary ranges for IT specialists based in India can, however, be particularly broad to reflect the fact that employers can find a wide range of experience and competency levels when hiring from the country’s huge labour pool.
As a general rule, junior to mid-level IT specialists like Go developers can cost less in India than even in Eastern Europe but as the jobs market becomes more international, senior specialists have narrowed the salary gap compared to peers from other parts of the world.
Data from in.talent.com indicates the average median salary of a Go developer in India is ₹1,500,000 per year (€18,752) or ₹125,000 (€1562) a month, rising to ₹2,500,000 (€31,254) a year or ₹208,333 for senior roles.
Source: in.talent.com
Data from another source, the jobs portal AmbitionBox, based on 79 Indian Go developer salaries suggests the average is even lower at ₹800,000 (€10,013) per annum, rising to ₹2,250,000 (€28,162) a year.
Source: AmbitionBox.com
The salaries commanded by the most senior Go developers in India are more likely to be comparable to those of peers in Eastern Europe than the notably lower levels for those lower down the scale of seniority.
Average Go developer salary in the United States of America
We’ll conclude our analysis of average Go developer salaries and rates around the world with the USA, the world’s largest economy and by far its biggest market for tech talent. The USA is generally a high salary economy and software developers including those with expertise in Go, are in short supply compared to demand, pushing their salaries even higher.
Data from talent.com based on 1223 Go developer salaries gives a median annual income of $135,000 a year or $11,250 a month. At the lower end of the scale the jobs portal says Go developers earn $117,000 a year (the salaries surveyed presumably did cover junior roles) or $9750 a month. At the top end of the payscale, Go developers in the USA can earn salaries of up to $170,000 a year or $14,167 a month.
Source: talent.com
Another major US jobs portal, ZipRecruiter.com, shows a broader range for Go developer salaries. While the median figure arrived at is almost exactly the same at $133,385 a year or $11,115 a month, the range shows junior Go developer positions starting at a more realistic $49,000 annually or $4083 a week. However, the top end of the ZipRecruiter range shows senior developers or software architects with a command of Go can earn up to $208,500 a year or $17,375 a month.
Source: ZipRecruiter.com
Do Go developers earn more or less than Node.js, Java and other back end developers?
Comparing the data gathered here with our sister analyses on average international Node.js and Java developer salaries, we can see that Go developers typically earn slightly more than their back end peers with expertise in other popular back end technology choices. In Germany, the figures are roughly the same but in the UK the median salary for Go developers is around £65,000 compared to £55,000 for Node.js and Java expertise.
Node.js developers in the USA earn a median average of $120,000 a year and Java developers $106,000 compared to $135,000 for Go developers. That is most likely down to there being fewer Go developers on the market, increasing competition for them between employers.
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