The Stack Overflow Developer Survey will again survey the Stack Overflow community in 2025. 49,000 software developers worldwide took part in the study this year. How has the salary data compared to 2024? You can find an overview in this article.

If you are also interested in German tech salaries, take a look here.

What is Stack Overflow?

Stack Overflow is a platform for software developers ask questions and exchange ideas with the community. With over 100 million website views per month, it is one of the 500 most popular websites on the Internet. Many software developers use Stack Overflow in their daily programming work to solve problems, learn new things or interact with other software developers.

What is the Stack Overflow Developer Survey?

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey is an annual study various topics concerning software developers. It is divided into the following main topics:

• Overview
• Developer profile
• Technologies
• Artificial intelligence
• Work
• Community
• Professional developers
• Methodology

Overview

The „Overview“, traditionally the introduction to the study, which describes the topics covered and the focus the study.

Developer profile

The „Developer Profile“ describes the school career and educational opportunities that software developers use to become software developers.

Extract 2025: 30% of developers learning to code this year have already attained a BS degree, indicating they are learning for a higher degree, for work, or are upskilling. This is an increase over last year when 24% said they had attained a BS degree.

Technology

In the „Technology“ section, the study shows the most popular programming languages, frameworks and co. of the software developers surveyed.

Extract 2024: The most popular technologies in 2025 are JavaScript (programming languages; 66%), PostgreSQL (database; 55.6%), Docker (cloud; 71.1%), Node.js (web frameworks; 48.7%), Visual Studio Code (Dev IDEs; 75.9%). In addition, OpenAI GPT is the most popular large language model (LLM) (81.4%) and GitHub (81.1%) is the most popular code documentation and collaboration tool.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

The „AI“ section has been included in the study for the first time in 2023. It describes how AI is used in software development.

Extract 2025: 84% of participants are using or planning to use AI in the development process this year. This is an increase compared to 2024 (76%). At the same time, 19.6% of respondents highly distrust the accuracy of AI tools.

Work

The „Work“ section sheds light on the professional situation of developers. What salaries do they earn? Which companies do they work for? What influence do they have on the technologies used?

Extract 2025: The number of developers working hybrid has remained the same compared to 2024. However, the number of remote workers has fallen again by 5.6% (2025: 32.4%; 2024: 38%; 2023: 41.41%). The number of “on-site” employees has also fallen by 2.1% (2025: 17.9%; 2024: 20%; 2023: 16.41%).

For the first time, countries are listed individually in this category. In Germany, 22.5% of respondents work remotely, 10.5% on-site, 46.2% hybrid, and 20.7% flexibly, as they wish.

Stack Overflow

The Stack Overflow section provides an overview of the respondents‘ use of the platform mentioned.

Methodology

The last section of the methodology shows how the study was planned and analyzed. This also includes feedback from the participants on the study itself.

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025: Participants and evaluation

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 surveyed a total of 49,009 participants (2024: 65,437 participants; 2023: 89,184 participants) from 166 countries (2024: 185 countries). 83.7% of them work full-time as software developers. That’s 41,021 software developers.

Tech salaries at a glance

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 polled a total of 7,218 respondents from the USA on the topic of salary (compared to 2024: 12,785 respondents). 74.8% of them are employed full-time, 5.6% are full-time students, and 10% are freelancers. The remaining 9.6% are divided between unemployed and retired people and those who do not wish to provide any information.

Salaries for software developers in the USA have fallen in many areas compared to the previous  year.

Salary: Senior Executive (C-Level, VP, etc.)

At management level, the average salary in 2024 was $225,000. In 2025, the average salary will remain the same.

Salary: Engineering Manager

At the middle management level, the average salary in 2025 is $200,000. In 2024, this was $192,500. A gain of +3.90%.

Salary: Data Scientist / Machine Learning Specialist

For data scientists, the average in 2025 ($145,000) will be down to a reduction of -8.81% compared to 2024 ($159,000). In the past, the category of “data scientist” was combined with machine learning specialist. From 2025, these will be listed in the “AI/ML engineer” group. AI/ML engineers will earn an average salary of $189,500 in 2025.

Salary: Data Engineer

Data Engineering remains the same at $150,000 (previous year: $150,000).

Salary: Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

In Cloud Engineering, the average salary in 2024 was $165,000. In 2025, the average salary is $189,000. A plus of +14.55%.

Salary: DevOps Specialist

In the DevOps sector, the average salary will rise from $145,000 (2024) to $165,000 (2025). A plus of +13.79%.

Salary: Backend Developer

Backend Developer registers an increase of +2.94%. It goes from an average of $170,000 (2024) to $175,000 (2025).

Salary: Frontend Developer

In the front-end sector, the average salary in 2025 is $145,000, a rise of +7.41% compared to the previous year ($135,000).

Salary: Full Stack Developer

Full stack developers earn an average of $138,000 in 2025, a rise of +6.15% compared to 2024 ($130,000).

Salary: Mobile Developer

Mobile developers record a strong decrease of -8.11%. From an average of $185,000 (2024) to $170,000 (2025).

Salary: Embedded Developer

Embedded developers get +1.92%. The average salary in 2025 will be $132,500 (2024: $130,000).

Salary: Security Professional

Security professionals record a rise of +15.38%. From an average of $130,000 (2024) it goes up to $150,000 (2025).

The study also shows other salary data. For example, that of the Desktop Developer (2025: $128,000), the Data or Business Analyst (2025: $100,956) or the System Administrator (2025: $83,000).

You can find a detailed insight into the study here: Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025

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