Software engineering is one of the hottest jobs today. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that software engineering jobs are projected to grow by 22% until 2029, which is way faster than the growth rates of other job sectors. In India, the situation is the same. Being one of the world’s largest IT workforce that constitutes 4.36 million employees, India’s IT sector had a revenue of US$ 180 billion in 2019. It is growing at a 13% rate and is expected to grow at a similar rate in the future as the global outsourcing market in India is continuously growing.
COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of volatility in all job sectors, but software developer jobs have fared well, with demand for their skills increasing as companies shifted to remote working. Here, we will discuss some of the evolving trends in the software engineering job market.
Current Software Engineering Job Market
According to the Hired – 2020 State of Software Engineering report, the average salaries for top software engineering roles went up by nearly 13% in London, 7% in Toronto, 7% in New York, and 6% in the San Francisco Bay Area. In India, software engineers got a salary hike of 9.6% in 2020.
The Hired report 2020 also states that the demand for AR/VR talent is 1,400% higher than the previous year, and blockchain demand has increased by 517% during the same period. Demand for both front-end and back-end software engineers also has increased by 17% across all industries. The demand is not only coming from big tech giants but also coming from telecom, financial services, startups, retailers, and manufacturing industries.
In India, the software development industry has been growing rapidly since the 1990s, and it has come a long way ever since it started. According to IBEF, the contribution of the IT industry to the GDP has increased from 1.2% in 1998 to 7.7% in 2020 and is expected to contribute 10% by 2025. With the 10% annual growth rate, it is expected to reach $ 300 – $ 350 in the next five years. The industry will be a net hirer of skilled workforce in FY 2021, adding 138,000 people, and in FY 2022, only the top 5 industry giants are planning to hire around 96,000 employees to their workforce. Analysing the above trends, it is clear that the industry will be growing rapidly in the future and will be hiring hundreds of thousands of skilled workforce.
Trends in Salaries of Software Engineers
According to Hired, in the large US tech firms, the AR/VR engineers got a salary ranging from US$ 135k to US$ 150k in 2019. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median salary of a US software engineer is $ 107,510 in 2019, and the top 25% of talent got an average of $ 130,460 annually.
According to payscale, the average base salary of an application software developer in India is INR 501,874 in 2021, with an entry-level salary of INR 345,016, and INR 442,241 after one to four years of experience. After 4 – 9 years of experience, a software engineer earns INR 873,499 per annum, and at senior-level, the average salary is INR 1,397,624 annually.
Software engineers in Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India, earn 19.6% more than the national average, while software engineers in Delhi and Hyderabad earn 10.5% and 4.7% more than the national average respectively. On the other hand, software engineers in Chennai, Noida, and Mumbai earn 9.6%, 8.6%, and 7.6% less than the national average.
Future of Software Engineering Job Market
As the new tools and technologies are evolving, the nature of traditional IT jobs is also changing, which is leading to the creation of new jobs. With the 10% annual growth rate, the software industry will continue to be a net job creator, and is committed to people-centric innovation, and delivering a superior transformative customer experience.
Indian software industry alone is upskilling more than 250,000 employees in newer and innovative digital skills, and has hired more than 40,000 freshly trained people, which indicates its commitment towards increasing the skills and capabilities of the Indian IT workforce.
Final Thoughts
We have discussed the evolving software engineering job market and future trends of the industry. By analysing all current and future trends, it is clear that the software industry job market is continuously growing and hiring skilled human resources in their workforce.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q. What is software engineering and what are the roles in this industry?
Ans: Software engineering is the process of developing system software and related applications, including web browsers, databases programs, etc. The most common job roles are software engineer, software developer, system designer, software programmers, information system manager, and product manager.
Q. What is the future of the software development industry?Ans: As stated earlier, the software industry is growing 10% per annum and is expected to reach $ 300 – $ 350 billion by 2025. With this growth rate, the industry will be hiring hundreds of thousands of skilled workforce for various industry roles.
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