Flickr/Thomas Bonte
- Stack Overflow, a popular Q&A site for developers, surveyed 65,000 users about what programming languages they use and their salaries.
- Based on those responses, Stack Overflow compiled a list of which programming languages are associated with the highest salaries.
- This survey was conducted in February, before the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic in March.
If you want to make a lot of money as a programmer, it might be worth brushing up on your skills.
Working as a programmer in the US can land you a six-figure salary, but there are some languages that are in even more demand. Stack Overflow, a Q&A site for developers with 50 million unique monthly visitors, surveyed 65,000 developers to ask about what languages they use, their salaries, and more. From this data, it put together a list of the programming languages associated with the highest salaries.
While some of the top moneymaking programming languages are well loved, a few of them made it onto Stack Overflow's list of most dreaded languages. Perhaps these high salaries compensate for having to work with languages that most developers don't want to use.
This survey showed developers' median salaries worldwide and in the US, and Stack Overflow converted currencies to USD using the exchange rate on February 2, 2020, and assumed 12 working months and 50 working weeks for annual salaries.
Also, the survey was taken in February, before the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic in March. Different routines and challenges around remote work may have affected developers' choices, but we'll just have to wait until the next survey to see how, if at all.
For now, here are the top programming languages associated with the highest salaries, according to Stack Overflow, in descending order.