Software Developer Jobs double 10 YearsThere are multiple technological disruptions happening. AI, CyberSecurity, IoT, mobilization of software and Data Science are just a few. Between the new technologies and the demands from what we have on the table now, software development jobs can easily double in ten years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Year 2000 job report told us there were 697,000 software development jobs in the US. The same report estimated there would be 1,361,000 software development jobs by 2010. This report missed the mark.

In 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were 1,336,300 software development jobs in the US.

In other words, the conservative Department of Labor said we would double the number software development jobs in 10 years. It only took 8 years to double. We got to the projected number 2 years early. Keep in mind, in 2008, the iPhone had just come out. The app store was nothing like it is now.

These numbers are using a couple of very specific BLS job titles. (e.g. Computer software engineers, applications) There are many other BLS job categories we could add (e.g. Database administrators, Network systems analysts,…) that can make the numbers even bigger. For every software developer, there are at least two more IT people employed.

We recently had an entry where we mentioned the current BLS software developer job count was 1.7M with 250,000 openings.

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What is going to make the Software Developer Jobs Grow?

Here are several factors that may cause the number of software developer jobs to double in ten years:

software developer jobs

  • Manufacturing devices and sensors with embedded code. Think the Internet-of-Things for a smart manufacturing line.
  • Legacy web-based software is just now becoming available en-masse as mobile applications.
  • Home assistants are in version 1.0. Echo, Google Home and Jibo are very early in their life cycle. Think about what the first iPhone had available for it. Wait until the software developers start building apps for the home assistants.
  • Big Data is still in its infancy. Companies are early in their adoption of Big Data and MBA programs are just now beginning to offer degrees in data analytics.
  • For every device included in the IoT, there is code running behind the scenes.
  • Everything previously mentioned has to have security encoded. The people who specialize in writing software for business functionality are not the same ones who write software for security needs.

The BLS does their forecast based on past data. The curious thing about these software development jobs is most will be focused on hardware and technology devices that do not exist yet.

In the next ten years, we can easily have 3.4M software developers with another 5M other IT jobs surrounding them.

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Decide Consulting is a software and IT Staffing firm based in Houston, TX. Founded by veteran software consultants, Decide has developed proprietary methods for finding problem-solving IT personnel. Our Software products focus on the Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) and Healthcare markets.