Average salaries for senior software developers have increased by 19% since 2019, while less experienced developers have seen their salary increase by 7.4% over the same period.
OfferZen published its 2022 State of the Developer Nation Reportwhich revealed that backend developers earn the highest salaries when it comes to senior and junior developers.
When it comes to those with fewer years of experience, backend developers earn 27% higher salaries than their front-end peers.
The gap widens for developers with more than ten years of experience. Senior backend developers earn on average 33% more than their frontend counterparts.
OfferZen has also found that while developers in Cape Town still earn more than those working elsewhere in the country, the gap is narrowing.
However, Capetonian developers have been the highest paid for three consecutive years.
The industries that pay developers the most are financial technology and cloud, followed by data and analytics, e-commerce and consulting.
Developers working in e-commerce or telecommunications experienced the largest year-over-year salary growth, averaging 9%.
By comparison, software-as-a-service developers only saw their salaries increase by 2% – the lowest reported year-over-year growth.
According to OfferZen, developers who code in Kotlin, Go, or Ruby earn the highest salaries, followed by TypeScript and C++.
The OfferZen report also revealed that male software developers earn on average 17% more than women with the same qualifications.
The gap between the average salaries of male and female software developers increased by 2% compared to last year.
By comparison, the gap between the average salaries of men and women for those with six to ten years of experience has increased from 3.5% in 2021 to 15.5% in 2022.
He found that JavaScript remains the most widely used programming language, followed by C# and TypeScript, and Go climbs the ranks of the most sought-after programming languages.
However, Python remains the programming language most sought after by South African developers.
OfferZen also reported that cryptocurrency is gaining momentum when it comes to the most exciting industries according to developers, and could be one of the most promising sectors in 2022.
When it comes to cloud computing, Amazon Web Services (AWS) dominates in South Africa. AWS is used for 43.2% of cloud platforms in the country.
The second highest is Microsoft Azure with 29.6%, followed by Google Cloud Platform with 14.4%.
OfferZen also found that, whether in a hybrid format including in-office sessions or a full work-from-home setup, around 92% of South African developers work remotely.
Specifically, 51% of developers work in a remote-only setup, followed by 41% who split their time between the office and home.
