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There are
46.05 million developers around the world

Source: SlashData Developer Nation surveys | Updated: Q1 2025

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How Many Developers
Are There in the World?

This is our most frequently asked question here at SlashData, both from professionals who need to size their addressable market or tech market trends followers. 

To help you, we happily share this number and update it as new data comes along. Go ahead and confidently use this number in your pitch, BoD presentation, or article. We follow a strict methodology to ensure that this is the most accurate estimate you can get. 

Why you can trust this developer population number

You can trust this number because we rely on two key sources for our estimates:

  1. Reliable 3rd-party Data Sources – We analyze developer activity from GitHub, Stack Overflow, and employment statistics.

  2. Our own Developer Nation Survey data – Our survey has been conducted 29 times, with over 10,000 developers per wave.

By calibrating external data with survey findings, we create a global developer estimate. This estimate can be segmented in many ways for instance by region and technology.

Are you looking to size a particular segment? Get in touch and we will walk you through the process.

Population growth
over the past 3 years

Global developer population (in millions)
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What sets SlashData’s
population estimates apart

To ensure your safety in using our data, we avoid basing our data on pageviews, downloads, IP addresses, and so on as most estimates around the web do. All of these are susceptible to a multiplier effect, not in the least due to multi-machine and multi-browser software testing, frequent cleaning of caches and cookies for testing, etc. 

 

SlashData estimates are exclusively based on what we consider to be direct indicators of human developer activity. At the same time, we go to great lengths to minimise the probability of major sampling biases in the following ways:

1. Having the largest, broadest and most diverse developer sample

In each survey we field 10,000+ responses. By reaching out to developers afresh in every survey through dozens of independent channels, we minimise repeat sampling bias. We design a holistic sampling regime to ensure that our sample is never biased towards specific regional, vendor, or technology communities.

2. Minimized bias through weighting

We use a sophisticated weighting methodology, which we have developed and evolved in-house, to correct for possible sampling biases across outreach channels, regions, development platforms, and more.

Find out more about our methodology here

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Questions?

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What can we

do for you?

Audience insights, product development, brand research, competitive market analysis and more.

OUR SERVICES

Who can benefit from developer audience size insights?

Our estimates help businesses size their addressable market (TAM, SAM, SOM) and can also help teams in:

  • Product & Strategy Teams - Identifying high-value developer segments and measuring ROI.

  • Marketing & Growth Teams - Tracking developer adoption.

  • Pricing & Revenue Teams - Optimising pricing strategies.

  • Competitive Intelligence – Benchmarking against competitors.

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Programming language community sizes

Active developers globally (in millions) | Q3 2024
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