Coding Salaries – The Breakdown

Coding (or software development) is a fulfilling career for numerous reasons: It’s creative, satisfying, and always evolving. Of course, it also helps that it’s a terrific industry for those who value progression – incremental pay rises are not uncommon in tech, and coders can expect their asking price to climb after a few short years.
Here’s a salary breakdown for software developers, looking at different regions and the aforementioned incremental pay increases…

Europe
Starting our research in Ireland (where Code Institute was born), the typical software developer starts on €25,390 while the industry average is €34,912 a year according to PayScale.com. That’s an impressive jump already, but the most interesting figure comes a few years later: The same site says that the number climbs considerably throughout a dev’s career and the average experienced software developer’s annual salary is €53,689. And those developers can eventually become software development managers, whose salaries range from €71,000 to €93,000.
Broadening the net, the EU software developer’s starting salary is €32,0000 on average, climbing to an average of €44,600 a year (according to Glassdoor). The pay rise trend is consistent here too: One example on the same site has a software developer’s salary at €80,000 a year if that dev has ten years’ experience. That’s a pay rise well over 100%.

North America
In the United States, Glassdoor’s survey says that the average beginner software dev’s salary is a healthy US$44,000, rising to US$85,000 for the average salary and climbing even further to US€127,000 for experienced devs.
The same site reports that their Canadian neighbours tend to start at Can$62,000 (US$49,000), rising to an average salary of Can€80,000, which translates to about US$63,000. The higher end of the scale is Can$98,000 – a smaller pay bump than in the States, but still a welcome 50%.

Elsewhere
Looking beyond to other territories, the trend for career progression is consistent around the world. And naturally, local salaries reflect local economies. So – according to this survey – in New Zealand, it ranges from the equivalent of  €27,000 to €60,000. And Israeli software developers typically start at €24,000, with an experienced developer making a whopping €87,000.

The Coding Trajectory
If there’s one consistent trend for coding paygrades worldwide, it’s that they ascend at an impressive clip. Coders can start at a solid salary and frequently see it double (or more) within five years, judging by some of the surveys above and the experience of some of our graduates.
This is one reason why coding is such an attractive long-term career: Life gets more expensive as one gets older, thanks to mortgages, parenthood, retirement plans and unwelcome surprises, so it’s important to have a salary that adapts to life’s changes.

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