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srust99 srust99
 
M$10 August 20, 2009 11:28 AM

How many software developers are there worldwide

what is the profile of these developers eg architect, systems analyst
what is their geographical breakdown
their focus area eg mobile vs web vs cloud vs enterprise
what platform or technology area do they develop for with

the breakdowns can be in absolute or percentages
I gather China and India have about 3M software developers each
worldwide the number ranges between 14.5M and 17M developers
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robbrown robbrown
 
 August 20, 2009 12:26 PM
There are between 12 and 17 million software developers in the world.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/03/ctia-mobile-developer-tech-wire-cx_ew_0403ctia.html
"Backus, the Motorola director, says industry estimates point to as many as 17 million software developers in the world--a community that spans people tinkering in their garages to those working on applications within companies."

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/453880/how-many-developers-are-there-in-the-world
"There are approximately 4000 million people in the world. I estimate that 30% of them have access to a computer - this is 1200 million. Of those, I estimate that 1% are software developers according to the definition given above - this is 12 million. Therefore there are on the order of 12 million software developers in the world. This is consistent with the estimate given by Joel."


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pixelsilva pixelsilva
 
August 20, 2009 07:48 PM
...eerrr... check again rob, last time I saw we were some 6.500 million people in this planert (somehow this number has leveled the last decade witout noticianble increment). Think about the 1.300 million Chinese and 1.1 million Indian, they account for 1/3 of all the planet population or some 2.400 milion people between China and India alone.

If your 4.000 million number were to be true, the rest of the world will be left with just 1.600 million (which is a wrong statistic). Just think about your own USA with 303 million, add that to the global and you´ll see a more dramatic fall of the number.

So, all your prediction is based on a wrong account. I suggest you start all over again and try fix the scenario.

Regards.

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robbrown robbrown
 
August 20, 2009 07:57 PM
@pixelsilva

Could you please provide a source for your facts?

I found 2 sources to form my answer and drew a range based on their conclusions.

I'm happy to receive criticism and correction to truly find a best answer to a question but can't do that when challenged with erroneous data.

Also, please remember that I like you and I'm just trying my best to answer a question.

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pixelsilva pixelsilva
 
August 21, 2009 01:43 PM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Population-milestones.jpg

@robbrown, hope this help to clarify things. Here is the actual Earth´s population number (my global population prediction fell 279 million shy, but for the most part the prediction was almost correct), according to the United States Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/ reflected on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population web page:

---Quote---
The term world population commonly refers to the total number of living humans on Earth at a given time. As of 21 August 2009, the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6.779 billion.

The 2008 rate of growth has almost halved since its peak of 2.2% per year, which was reached in 1963. World births have levelled off at about 134-million-per-year, since their peak at 163-million in the late 1990s, and are expected to remain constant.
---Quote---

Country ....... population ....... Date ....... % population
1. China .... 1,331,946,446 .... 2009-07-21 .... 19.67% Chinese
2. India .... 1,166,925,850 .... 2009-07-21 ....17.23% Indian
*. Europ. Union .... 499,673,300 .... 2009-01-01 .... 7.38% Europeans
3. United States .... 307,162,899 .... 2009-07-21 .... 4.52% US Americans
4. Indonesia .... 230,729,491 .... 2009-07-21 .... 3.41% Indonesian
5. Brazil .... 191,466,483 .... 2009-07-21 .... 2.83 % Brazilian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

http://knowledge.allianz.com/nopi_downloads/images/demographic%20change_global%20population_96dpi_1.jpg

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robbrown robbrown
 
August 21, 2009 02:23 PM
Wow! Great sources Pixelsilva!

I still do not know if you're correct.

Your logic doesn't seem to flow between the population statistics that you found and the number of programmers in the world.

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pixelsilva pixelsilva
 
August 23, 2009 12:14 AM
Youk now what @robbrown ? You are absolutely right! (somehow)

It doesn´t matter if the world has 4.000 million or 6.779 million as I suggest... because your asumption talks about 1.200 million people (out of the total) having computers. So, this is the importan number, not the global population. From 1.200 million you estimate 1% are software developers. That is 12 million, your number.

In the other side, if you talk in percentages, the the equation changes, because 30% out of 6.779 million is 2.034 million people, assuming 1% of them are software developers, the numer will be.... 20.3 million!

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stanar stanar
 
August 24, 2009 01:19 PM
@pixelsilva - not to nick pick on you, but did you mean to type 6,500 million? Because the world population 6+ billion or 6000+ million, not 6.500 million. And also lot of typos. you could use the spellcheck feature in the answer/comment box.

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Other Answers (2)

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benney benney
 
August 20, 2009 11:59 AM
You ever wonder how many software developers are out there? Of any discipline or skill level. I am just amazed at how many applications are out there.

it is like being amazed at the number of people who can play guitar - there's lot of them, but only a tiny percentage could record an album that people would pay money to listen to.

In the USA, we have 306M people and 25M businesses and we are a technologically advanced country, Occupational employment projections to 2010 gives Computer Programmers; Year 2010 (est.) - 680,000

Generally speaking then, the USA has a population to programmer ratio of 450 to 1 and a business to programmer ratio of 35 to 1

Canada has a population of 33M, 1M businesses, and 115,000 programmers

Tags: developer, software

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girlieq300... girlieq300...
 
August 24, 2009 12:34 PM - New Source
Please check out Copy and Pasting on Mahalo for some rules about copying content from other sites.

This was c&p'd from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/203824/how-many-professional-software-developers-are-there-worldwide

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bishopphot... bishopphot...
 
August 20, 2009 07:32 PM
I would say add one to your numbers above. I am definitely interested and think this field, specifically data management (as we shift from paper to electronic communications). So between 14, 000, 001 and 17, 000, 001.

thanks

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