Python’s popularity is growing fast, also in The Netherlands. But do we really know how fast? Actually, not really, because the popularity of a language is a subjective matter. Certainly the answer you get depends on the person you ask. So is there any way we can get a better understanding of usage numbers of programming languages? Fortunately there are already some useful measures for a global overview, like the Tiobe Index and the Stackoverflow Survey. In addiotion, I will make a deep dive for the numbers in The Netherlands. Because, “meten is weten!” (translation: to measure is to know).
Jobs
First, let’s take a look at the number of job openings on popular job sites. These numbers should give us a good approximation of Python’s popularity in the professional field.
Indeed
| Language in Job Description | Total |
|---|---|
| Javascript | 5,104 |
| Java | 3,659 |
| C# | 3,424 |
| PHP | 3,400 |
| Python | 3,091 |
| C++ | 1,408 |
Monsterboard
| Language in Job Description | Total |
|---|---|
| Javascript | 336 |
| Java | 307 |
| C# | 265 |
| Python | 228 |
| C++ | 140 |
| PHP | 95 |
LinkedIn Jobs
| Language in Job Description | Total |
|---|---|
| Javascript | 7,096 |
| Java | 6,526 |
| Python | 5,640 |
| C# | 5,538 |
| PHP | 4,289 |
| C++ | 2,282 |
The distribution of languages in job descriptions is relatively similar. It looks like we are mostly short Javascript (front-end) developers. In total there are more than thousands of job openings. In short, for every language, there are plenty of jobs to choose from!
GitHub
Secondly, let’s take a look at GitHub. Most of the developers & programmers have a Github account. On the other hand, a quick search for The Netherlands shows us the total number of users is only 37k. This is a lot lower than the numbers on LinkedIn, so maybe not everyone has listed their location. Here are the results:
Thirdly, let’s take a look at LinkedIn. In The Netherlands, the majority of people in the workforce (9 million) have a LinkedIn profile: 7,8 million. Therefore it is a good place for getting more insights. For instance, we can check how often a specific language is listed in the current ‘job title’. As you can see, Java is leading the charts. This is not really surprising, because it has traditionally been the most important language for commercial software. However, the distance with Python will decrease considering the current job openings.
| Language in Job Title | Total |
|---|---|
| Java | 2.993 |
| PHP | 1.146 |
| C# | 483 |
| Python | 372 |
| Javascript | 286 |
| C++ | 168 |
Side note: most people don’t list a specific language in their job title. They mostly use generic terms, like “developer” (49k) and “software” (42k). Furthermore, job roles like “data scientist” (4k) typically involve Python or R. So you can use these numbers to put them into context.
We can also look at how often a language is listed as a skill:
| Skill | Total |
|---|---|
| Java | 79k |
| Javascript | 74k |
| Python | 68k |
| PHP | 64k |
| C# | 49k |
| C++ | 46k |
Here the distribution seems to be a bit more even. This makes sense, because most developers are using multiple languages.
Universities
Lastly, Python is currently used a lot at Universities in The Netherlands. As a result, there will be a massive inflow of people with Python skills entering the job market.
To conclude, this was a rudimentary analysis of the landscape in The Netherlands. Hopefully it did give you some useful insights. Do these numbers surprise you? Or do you have any other metrics you would like to see? Feel free to share you thoughts in the comments!