This resource presents a comprehensive set of statistics and facts on the JavaScript programming language. The data is grouped into organised sections, so you can quickly navigate to what you are interested in and where you expect to find the information you are looking for.
As the dominant web development language and ecosystem, JavaScript has arguably been the most influential digital technology for several years now. As a custom software development company and IT outsourcing partner, we rarely work on projects that don’t involve JavaScript or require developers with expertise in the language and its associated frameworks, libraries and tooling.
If you are interested in learning more about JavaScript and the JavaScript ecosystem, you can refer to the following articles:
- What is JavaScript and what is it used for?
- TypeScript vs JavaScript
- The most popular frontend JavaScript frameworks and libraries
- Angular vs React: a comparative analysis that doesn’t choose a side
How popular is JavaScript?
As stated, JavaScript dominates the web. According to the Developer Survey of StackOverFlow, 67.9% of professional developers use the language more often than any other.
According to Statista, the usage of JavaScript as a programming language among developers is quoted at 63.61%, followed by HTML/CSS (52.97%) and Python (49.28%).
Programming languages usage in percentage. Source: Statista
Developers and demographics
17.5% of JavaScript developers reside in the US, 7.6% in Germany, 5.5% in France, 5.2% in UK and 4.7% in India. According to Stackoverflow, this distribution is very similar to the place of residence of developers in general. The US is also home to the most developers, with 18.9% of the international total. The other countries listed as home to large numbers of JS developer are also all in the top 6 for overall developer numbers.
JavaScript developers by their country of residence.
What is the average age of JavaScript developers?
48% of JavaScript developers are between 25 and 34 years old, followed by 21.7% of them aged 35-44 and 19.6% of them aged 19-24.
Age of JavaScript developers.
3-5 years of experience in the field is the most common range with 29% of the developers saying that is the case, 26.4% indicate that they have 6-10 years of experience.
Years of experience of JavaScript developers.
43.5% of them work at a company with more than 100 employees.
Number of employees at the company JavaScript developers are working with.
53.3% have a higher education degree in a related field.
Higher education degree percentage.
As is still the case across the software development sector in general, JavaScript development is also male dominated. 93% of the developers are male, while only 5.2% are female.
68.8% of JavaScript developers are White, while other ethnicities are much less common among developers.
Ethnicity distribution of JavaScript developers.
Source: State of JS
The rise of TypeScript as an extension of JavaScript
In 2012, Microsoft released TypeScript as an extension of JavaScript. JS syntax and semantics were used and some additional features that developers needed such as optional typing were incorporated. TypeScript has become popular among JavaScript developers due to its increased productivity and easy maintenance of growing codebases. TypeScript is now not only a JavaScript trend anymore; it has evolved into a de-facto language.
According to the survey conducted by State of JS, TypeScript has surpassed JavaScript in terms of developers dividing their time in the usage of both languages. 28% of the developers stated that they used TypeScript all the time, while only 11.1% stated that they used JavaScript all the time.
Regarding TypeScript as a superset of JavaScript, it clearly dominates with 98.9% usage compared to other supersets.
What is JavaScript used for?
According to StateofJS, a vast majority of JavaScript developers (84.7%) use the language in a professional context. Frontend development is the most popular use case of JavaScript, with 98% of developers using it for that purpose. 65% still use it for backend development, 27% for mobile apps, 20.1% for desktop apps, and 18.1% for data visualization.
What JavaScript is used for. Source: State of JS
In which industry sectors is JavaScript used the most?
46.6% of all JavaScript developers work in the Programming & Technical sector, with Ecommerce & Retail coming in at 30.3% and Finance at 17.5%.
Industry sector in which JavaScript is used. Source: State of JS
Which JavaScript frameworks and libraries are most used?
In the JavaScript landscape, React has maintained its stronghold for many years as the most prevalent framework. 82% of JavaScript developers use it as a frontend framework as of 2022.
The frontend frameworks Angular and Vue.js are most used after React and similarly popular, with a usage percentage of 49% and 46% respectively. In terms of user satisfaction, Vue.js even surpasses React.
According to Builtwith, there are roughly 1.7 million live websites that are built on Vue globally.
Usage percentage of different JavaScript frontend frameworks. Source: State of JS
In terms of developer experience across different JS frameworks, React is also the clear leader. More than 60% of the survey respondents stated that they would either use React again or are interested in it. Svelte comes in second, with the majority being interested in the framework. Svelte can be viewed as an upcoming JS framework many developers are interested in, though its usage is still limited in a commercial context.
Positive/negative experience with different JS frameworks. Source: State of JS
Express dominates the framework landscape for APIs and managing back-ends in JavaScript. 87.3% of developers state that this is their framework of choice.
Most used frameworks for APIs and managing back-ends of JavaScript.
Node.js, the most popular and used backend framework of JavaScript, dominates the engines/runtimes/execution environments with a usage percentage of 93.6%.
Most used runtimes in JavaScript.
What salaries can JavaScript developers expect?
Salaries of JavaScript developers are influenced by a combination of seniority and location. Other than that, they also highly depend on libraries and frameworks (frontend and backend) a developer is experienced in working with.
According to a survey conducted by State of JS, the largest part of the respondents earn between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. However, this survey is highly skewed in favour of the US, since a large part of the respondents resides in the US.
Yearly income of JavaScript developers.
In this article written by us, you can find an exhaustive investigation in salary ranges of JavaScript developers around the world. This section serves as a rough summary of salary data covered in the previous article. Exchange rates of currencies are taken as of 18th October 2023.
- A JavaScript developer in Germany on average earns €5416 a month or €67,160 a year. The range goes from €4774 a month for a developer with less than 3 years of experience to €6119 for a developer with more than 9 years of experience. Depending on the source, the higher end for a senior JavaScript developer can go up to €7127 per month.
- As one of the highest wage economies in the world, it doesn’t come as a surprise that JavaScript developer salaries in Switzerland are among the highest also. The average salary of a JS developer amounts to CHF 8958 (€9434) a month or CHF 107,500 (€113,205) a year with the higher end of the range reaching CHF 149,063 (€156,980) a year.
- The average salary for a JS developer in the UK is £4170 a month or £58,900 a year. Salaries in London are usually higher than the UK average, and that is the case for JS developers also, for which it amounts to £4924 a month or £69,545 a year. For senior roles the salary for a JS developer in the UK can reach a little over £7500 a month or £90,000 a year.
- A mid-range salary of a JS developer in Poland ranges from zł8000 (€1800) to zł18,000 (€4050) a month or between zł96,000 (€21,600) and zł216,000 (€48,600) a year. Junior developers earn as little as zł4000 (€900) a month and senior developers earn up to zł26,000 (€5850) a month.
- The average salary of a JavaScript developer in Ukraine stands at around $3500 a month or $42,000 a year. The lower end of that range is quoted at $2500 a month, while the higher end is at $4700.
- Salaries in the IT sector are among the highest in the world in the USA. It is the biggest labour market for software developers and IT specialists, but supply is tight, contributing to high salaries. A JS developer earns on average $9523 a month or $114,277 a year. The higher end of the range reaches $12,000. For senior roles in combination with other languages and technologies, some job ads even offer $15,000 a month.
The stated average salaries vary depending on what JS library and framework the developer is working with. However, these variations in general are small and mostly stay within +/- 10% of average JavaScript developer salaries listed above. If you are interested in more detailed salary variations, visit the following pages:
