May 16, 2019 at 17:36The rarest and most expensive programming languages
It is generally accepted that programming languages such as Rust, Erlang, Dart, as well as some others are the rarest in the IT world. Since I select IT specialists for companies, constantly contacting IT specialists and employers, I decided to conduct a personal study and find out whether this is true. The information is relevant for the Russian IT market.
To collect information, I studied the number of vacancies, the requirements for which required language skills, as well as the number of resumes with this skill. I collected data in Linkedin, on HeadHunter, using the Amazing Hiring service. I also have personal statistics on applications to my agency.
On the whole, my research touched eight languages.
World statistics: According to Stackoverflow statistics from 2018, Rust ranked first (third consecutive year) in the list of the most favorite languages among developers and sixth in the list of the most expensive languages in terms of salary ($ 69,000 per year).
Despite the fact that the language is quite popular in the world, in Russia it still remains one of the rarest programming languages.
In key skills, Rust met 319 specialists on Headhunter and 360 on Linkedin. However, only 24 developers positioned themselves at Headhunter as Rust developers. It is secretly believed that only two companies in Russia write on Rust. 32 companies on Headhunter and 17 on Linkedin offer jobs to Rust.
My agency regularly receives job applications for Rust developers. However, there are so few specialists that I already have the impression that I am familiar with all the Rust specialists in the country. Therefore, in the case of the Rust language, many candidates who are interested in vacancies master the language in the course of the ToR.
According to the same statistics, Stackoverflow Erlang is not much behind Rust and also got into all sorts of ratings. Erlang is ranked twenty-first in the list of developers' favorite languages, and Erlang immediately follows Rust in terms of salary, taking seventh position ($ 67,000 a year).
Headhunter has 67 job offers for developers with knowledge of Erlang. On Linkedin - 38. If we talk about the number of resumes - only 55 developers on Headhunter had a direct knowledge of Erlang as a key language (it was indicated in the title), and 38 specialists Erlang met in a job title on Linkedin.
Moreover, there is a tendency instead of Erlang developers to hire guys who own the developed Google Go or Golang, since there are more of them, and the salary is lower. However, my personal opinion (based on data from my agency) is that Go will not supplant Erlang, because Erlang is an indispensable language for truly highly loaded and complex projects.
Mainly used in game development. There are practically no vacancies (literally one on Headhunter). In Linkedin, only two companies require knowledge of this language. If we talk about the proposal - almost two hundred developers pointed to Linkedin knowledge of this language, 109 to Headhunter, of which 10 people put the knowledge of Haxe in the name of the resume. It turns out that the Haxe programming language is not very popular in the Russian market. Supply exceeds demand.
Invented by Google. Language is becoming more and more popular in the market. There are published job openings on Headhunter 10, on Linkedin - 8, but employers do not require this language in the list of key skills. The main condition is a large Javascript background and a competent approach to solving problems.
The number of developers familiar with the programming language is 275, but again, only 11 people consider Dart their main skill. On LinkedIn, 124 people mentioned the language in their resumes one way or another.
My personal experience and statistics from my agency state that large IT companies are already using this language. This suggests that soon it will be excluded from the list of rare programming languages. By the way, specialists who speak the Dart language are “expensive” in the market.
A fairly rare programming language. Developed by Microsoft. In Russia, only a few companies (12 on HH and 7 on Linkedin) request an F # programmer. In other cases, knowledge of the language is optional. By the way, the number of developers with knowledge of F # is gradually growing. The language even appeared in the recent Stackoverflow ranking . He takes the ninth line in the list of the most favorite languages among developers, and in terms of salary he was the first ($ 74,000 per year).
If we talk about the number of published resumes, there are 253 at Headhunter, but very few specialists consider F # as their main language. Only three people brought F # knowledge to the title of the resume. On Linkedin, the situation is similar: 272 developers mentioned F # in their portfolios, of which only six F # were indicated in the post.
The total number of vacancies is 122 on Headhunter and 72 on Linkedin. The most requested language among the students is Erlang. More than 50% of companies request knowledge of Erlang. The most uncommon language was Haxe. Looking for professionals with knowledge of Haxe 1% and 3% of companies on Headhunter and Linkedin, respectively.
By the number of published resumes, the situation is almost similar. Of the 1,644 headhunter resumes published, more than forty percent (688) were Erlang, the least (7%) were those with Haxe development skills. The data obtained from Linkedin is slightly different. Least of all the resume was published by the guys who own Dart. Out of 1894 portfolios, only 124 are related to Dart development.
I decided to combine all these three languages in one paragraph for one simple reason - truly the rarest languages. There are no vacancies and almost no resumes. You can count on the fingers of developers who have indicated any of these languages in their skills.
Since these languages are not included in the annual Stackoverflow report, nor are they found in vacancies, I will write a few words about what these languages are.
Opa is a web programming language that immediately tries to replace HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP. Designed in 2011. Opa is free and currently only available on 64-bit Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
Fantom is a general-purpose language that compiles into the Java Runtime Environment, JavaScript, and the .NET Common Language Runtime. Designed in 2005.
Zimbu- A unique and specific language that can be used to develop almost anything: from GUI applications to OS kernels. At the moment, it is considered an experimental language, not all functions of which are developed.
In addition to programming languages, I also included in the list and position of a cybersecurity specialist. The number of vacancies compared to the number of resumes is small (about 20). It turns out that the supply exceeds demand (as is the case with Haxe), which is quite atypical for the IT sector. The salary of information security specialists is low. For example, in St. Petersburg, an experienced cyber security specialist is offered 80-100 thousand rubles.
My little research showed that the “top” languages for mastering are: Rust, Erlang, Dart - there is a demand, a high salary. Languages that were not very popular were Haxe, Opa, Fantom, Zimbu. F # is popular abroad, the Russian IT market has not yet captured.
Data collection
To collect information, I studied the number of vacancies, the requirements for which required language skills, as well as the number of resumes with this skill. I collected data in Linkedin, on HeadHunter, using the Amazing Hiring service. I also have personal statistics on applications to my agency.
On the whole, my research touched eight languages.
Rust
World statistics: According to Stackoverflow statistics from 2018, Rust ranked first (third consecutive year) in the list of the most favorite languages among developers and sixth in the list of the most expensive languages in terms of salary ($ 69,000 per year).
Despite the fact that the language is quite popular in the world, in Russia it still remains one of the rarest programming languages.
In key skills, Rust met 319 specialists on Headhunter and 360 on Linkedin. However, only 24 developers positioned themselves at Headhunter as Rust developers. It is secretly believed that only two companies in Russia write on Rust. 32 companies on Headhunter and 17 on Linkedin offer jobs to Rust.
My agency regularly receives job applications for Rust developers. However, there are so few specialists that I already have the impression that I am familiar with all the Rust specialists in the country. Therefore, in the case of the Rust language, many candidates who are interested in vacancies master the language in the course of the ToR.
Erlang
According to the same statistics, Stackoverflow Erlang is not much behind Rust and also got into all sorts of ratings. Erlang is ranked twenty-first in the list of developers' favorite languages, and Erlang immediately follows Rust in terms of salary, taking seventh position ($ 67,000 a year).
Headhunter has 67 job offers for developers with knowledge of Erlang. On Linkedin - 38. If we talk about the number of resumes - only 55 developers on Headhunter had a direct knowledge of Erlang as a key language (it was indicated in the title), and 38 specialists Erlang met in a job title on Linkedin.
Moreover, there is a tendency instead of Erlang developers to hire guys who own the developed Google Go or Golang, since there are more of them, and the salary is lower. However, my personal opinion (based on data from my agency) is that Go will not supplant Erlang, because Erlang is an indispensable language for truly highly loaded and complex projects.
Haxe
Mainly used in game development. There are practically no vacancies (literally one on Headhunter). In Linkedin, only two companies require knowledge of this language. If we talk about the proposal - almost two hundred developers pointed to Linkedin knowledge of this language, 109 to Headhunter, of which 10 people put the knowledge of Haxe in the name of the resume. It turns out that the Haxe programming language is not very popular in the Russian market. Supply exceeds demand.
Dart
Invented by Google. Language is becoming more and more popular in the market. There are published job openings on Headhunter 10, on Linkedin - 8, but employers do not require this language in the list of key skills. The main condition is a large Javascript background and a competent approach to solving problems.
The number of developers familiar with the programming language is 275, but again, only 11 people consider Dart their main skill. On LinkedIn, 124 people mentioned the language in their resumes one way or another.
My personal experience and statistics from my agency state that large IT companies are already using this language. This suggests that soon it will be excluded from the list of rare programming languages. By the way, specialists who speak the Dart language are “expensive” in the market.
F #
A fairly rare programming language. Developed by Microsoft. In Russia, only a few companies (12 on HH and 7 on Linkedin) request an F # programmer. In other cases, knowledge of the language is optional. By the way, the number of developers with knowledge of F # is gradually growing. The language even appeared in the recent Stackoverflow ranking . He takes the ninth line in the list of the most favorite languages among developers, and in terms of salary he was the first ($ 74,000 per year).
If we talk about the number of published resumes, there are 253 at Headhunter, but very few specialists consider F # as their main language. Only three people brought F # knowledge to the title of the resume. On Linkedin, the situation is similar: 272 developers mentioned F # in their portfolios, of which only six F # were indicated in the post.
The statistics are as follows:
The total number of vacancies is 122 on Headhunter and 72 on Linkedin. The most requested language among the students is Erlang. More than 50% of companies request knowledge of Erlang. The most uncommon language was Haxe. Looking for professionals with knowledge of Haxe 1% and 3% of companies on Headhunter and Linkedin, respectively.
By the number of published resumes, the situation is almost similar. Of the 1,644 headhunter resumes published, more than forty percent (688) were Erlang, the least (7%) were those with Haxe development skills. The data obtained from Linkedin is slightly different. Least of all the resume was published by the guys who own Dart. Out of 1894 portfolios, only 124 are related to Dart development.
Opa, Fantom, Zimbu
I decided to combine all these three languages in one paragraph for one simple reason - truly the rarest languages. There are no vacancies and almost no resumes. You can count on the fingers of developers who have indicated any of these languages in their skills.
Since these languages are not included in the annual Stackoverflow report, nor are they found in vacancies, I will write a few words about what these languages are.
Opa is a web programming language that immediately tries to replace HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP. Designed in 2011. Opa is free and currently only available on 64-bit Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
Fantom is a general-purpose language that compiles into the Java Runtime Environment, JavaScript, and the .NET Common Language Runtime. Designed in 2005.
Zimbu- A unique and specific language that can be used to develop almost anything: from GUI applications to OS kernels. At the moment, it is considered an experimental language, not all functions of which are developed.
In addition to programming languages, I also included in the list and position of a cybersecurity specialist. The number of vacancies compared to the number of resumes is small (about 20). It turns out that the supply exceeds demand (as is the case with Haxe), which is quite atypical for the IT sector. The salary of information security specialists is low. For example, in St. Petersburg, an experienced cyber security specialist is offered 80-100 thousand rubles.
My little research showed that the “top” languages for mastering are: Rust, Erlang, Dart - there is a demand, a high salary. Languages that were not very popular were Haxe, Opa, Fantom, Zimbu. F # is popular abroad, the Russian IT market has not yet captured.