The top technologies / tech stacks 2022

The Setup

First things first. In total, the survey was conducted among 73,268 developers from 180 countries worldwide. The top 5 countries in terms of participation are the USA, India, Germany, England and Canada (we will come back to this later). The surveys were filtered out if the respondents spent less than three minutes on the survey. Thus, it is absolutely unrealistic that serious and honest answers were given here due to the length of the survey. As a new feature, a distinction was also made between beginners (people starting out in programming) and professionals (professional developers). Okay, are you ready for the results? Let's go!

Learning to Code

The number of people learning programming online has risen from 60% last year to 70%. As a child of the early 80s who still had to learn exclusively from books, I would have liked to see this development 20 years ago. Because learning online is not only interactive and fully "hands on", but above all, it's "social" - you are not alone, but your friends are also online and you learn together. This is not only fun, but also motivates you in a completely different way ... brave new online world!

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Most popular technologies

Let's move on to one of the main points of this survey - which technologies and tools are currently used and which developers would like to use.

Programming, scripting and mark-up languages

Let's start with the programming, scripting and mark-up languages.

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Javascript is the most frequently used programming language for the tenth year in a row. This is hardly surprising, given its wide range of uses on the web and in other applications. The situation is different for those learning to program. HTML/CSS, Javascript and Python are almost equally the most popular languages for people starting to code. One other interesting fact to notice is how little the web3 and blockchain programming language Solidity is represented (1.45%). This might be due to the fact that the survey only went up to 01 June 2022.

Databases

Overall, MySQL came in just ahead of PostgreSQL, while among professionals PostgreSQL only just took over first place from MySQL. A popular database in both camps is MongoDB. The reason for this is a large number of platforms and languages it supports.

Cloud

In the cloud, AWS remains the most used platform overall and for professionals. People learning to program use cloud platforms differently - here it is less about performance and professionalism. Otherwise, Google Cloud was pushed into second place by Microsoft Azure.

Web frameworks and technologies

In the area of frameworks, Node.js and React.js dominate. This also underlines why Javascript is at the top of the programming languages - overall, the first four places with jQuery and Express use Javascript technologies.

Most loved, dreaded, and wanted

"Most loved, feared and wanted" is a very much loved part of the annual Stackoverflow survey and gives some idea of what the software stacks of the future will look like. 

Programming, scripting and mark-up languages

In its seventh year of existence, Rust is still the most popular language. 87% of developers said they would continue to use this language. At the same time, Rust is the most sought-after technology along with Python, with TypeScript close behind.

For those who don't know Rust, here is a short excursion:

Rust is a programming language designed primarily for security and speed. Here, one of the special features of Rust is that it prevents the use of "unauthorised" memory access, which leads to fewer errors and higher security. Rust also has a very modern and flexible type system as well as strong support for parallel execution. These features make Rust an extremely suitable choice for system programming and applications when high performance and security are required. The language is used by many companies and projects, including Mozilla, the development team behind the Firefox browser.

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Databases

After five years of Redis being the most popular database, PostgreSQL is becoming the most popular and sought-after database. It is also at the top of developers' wish lists. Who knows, maybe next year it will oust MySQL from its throne after 10 years.

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Top Paying Technologies

Well, let's talk about money now. The best-paid language is still Clojure. For those who don't know it, Clojure is a dynamic, functionally oriented language that has adopted many concepts from Lisp. One of the special features of Clojure is the use of persistent data structures, which allow efficient parallel programming. Clojure is often used for the development of applications in the field of Big Data, web development and for the creation of tools and libraries.

Further, developers of Chef (now Progress Chef) are the top earners, but Chef is also the most dreaded other tool. Big Data and Data Streaming capabilities are also well paid, with Apache Spark, Apache Kafka and Hadoop in the top three of the other frameworks and libraries. Furthermore, developers with colocation experience are paid more than their colleagues who only work with the cloud.

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Web3 

There are mixed feelings about Web3 and blockchain. Sure, 2022 was also quite a rollercoaster ride for the Metaverse, DeFi, NFTs and blockchain. And Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX collapse are not even considered here. Blockchain developers are therefore torn about blockchain, crypto and decentralisation. While 32% are at least positive about the topic, 31% are against it and 26% are undecided. Those who are learning programming are more positive than professional developers, but many of them are also unsure. It remains to be seen what 2023 will bring in this area and whether the world will stumble into the next economic crisis.

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Employment 

Finally, we look at the interesting topic of the development of employment status and employment relationships.

Employment status

Among full-time employees, there was an increase of 4 percentage points for all respondents. The number of professional developers working as "independent contractors, freelancers or self-employed" has increased significantly in the last year (by 5 percentage points).

Employment status in Germany is as follows:

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With 56%, Germany has the fewest permanent employees among the 5 countries, but with 10% part-time employment 3 to 4 as many as in other countries (e.g. USA with 2.73%). The rate of self-employment, at just over 10 per cent, is in the middle of the field, with Canada being the most strongly represented with 12.31 %.

Workplace environment

The result on the working environment is particularly noteworthy in the post-Covid year 2022. 85% of the participants state that their company works remotely at least some of the time. In the smaller companies, 20% of the companies with 2-19 employees work on-site. The larger companies with more than 10,000 employees are the most likely to have a hybrid work environment.

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You can find all the details about this survey here: Stackoverflow Developer Survey 2022.

Now it's your turn - do you feel confirmed by this survey? And what development do you think is realistic for 2023? Make sure you let us know!

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