Report: Perl developers command 54% more money globally

Developers in the US earn the most, according to a report by HackerRank. Australia and Canada had the second-highest salaries for developers.

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If you know Perl—and you are a US-based developer–your job earning prospects are pretty good. Globally, developers who know Perl make more than 54% more than the average annual developer salary, according to HackerRank‘s 2020 Developer Skills Report.

Regardless of job role and level, US developers are paid an average of $109,167–more than developers in any other geographic location, the report stated. The next highest paying countries cited are Australia and Canada, with average developer salaries of $88,538 and $72,771, respectively.

SEE: How to build a successful developer career (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

The Netherlands and the United Kingdom rounded out the top five highest-paying countries for developers.

The average global salary for developers is $54,491, the report said.

Scala developers earn 42% more, while those familiar with Go earned 33% more, the report said. Interestingly, the same study found that Go is the number one language developers want to learn for the third consecutive year.

The report attributed the high pay associated with languages like Perl, Scala, and Go in part to demographics.

“About 10% of senior developers polled knew Perl—but only 2% of junior developers did,” the report said, adding that similar patterns were found with Scala and Go. “And since senior developers tend to earn higher salaries, the average salary associated with each language is elevated.”

SEE: 16 most in-demand coding languages worldwide (TechRepublic)

Frameworks commanded higher pay

Knowledge of the Backbone.js framework is associated with the highest pay, with developers earning 49% more than the global average. Cocoa and Ruby on Rails were cited by the report as linked to the next two highest salaries, respectively. Developers who know Cocoa earn 35% more than the global average, while those who know Ruby on Rails earn 30% more than the global average, according to the report.

Part of the reason for the higher pay is job seniority, the report noted. For example, 7% of senior developers know Backbone.js, compared with only 2% of junior developers, the HackerRank report said. Since senior developers earn higher pay, that could elevate the average pay linked to the framework, the report said.

Backbone.js is also considered an uncommon skill, the report added, since only 4% of developers globally know it. This could be another reason for the higher pay for developers who know it.

SEE: How to get a developer job: The best programming languages to learn in 2020 (TechRepublic)

Western cities pay developers more

Western cities pay the highest for developer salaries, with an average salary of $128,197, while the northeast ranks second, with an average salary of about $112,870.

Not surprisingly, tech talent magnets like San Francisco lead the western region in salaries. The average salary for a developer in San Francisco is $147,947, followed by Seattle at $134,538; and Los Angeles at $129,079.

In the northeast, Boston leads at $116,803, followed by New York at $115,792.
The average salary for developers in the Midwest is $100,710; the average salary in the south is $98,986.

Overall, only 35% of developers believe they are paid fairly, while 39% believe they are being paid unfairly compared with their peers, and 26% said they aren’t sure, according to the report.

Visibility into what developers earn has been made more transparent, thanks to websites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn, giving developers “unprecedented access to peer estimates,” the report said. This gives developers “the ammo they need to negotiate pay aligned with their fair market value.”

The insights come from 116,648 developers in 162 countries between November and December 2019, HackerRank said.