# Web Developers

US SOC code 15-1254. Markdown version of https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/15-1254

Also called: Front-end developer, Frontend developer, Front end developer, Website developer, WordPress developer.

## In brief

In May 2025, [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip) counted **70,190** US web developers, with median pay of **$92,650** a year. Of the BLS counts since 2021, the highest was **88,620**, in May 2022. The earliest figure here is [an estimate](https://www.digitalsilk.com/web-development/development-trends/web-development-statistics/) of **5,000** from 1995, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for web developers: Cloud deployment, serverless, and Jamstack, 2017 to 2022. Cloud-deployment platforms simultaneously lowered the barrier to shipping a web application (no server management) and raised the value of developers who understood the full cloud services landscape.

## What the sources say

### Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 3.8% from 2025 to 2035. Source: [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-1254&ioType=o).

### AI exposure studies

- **63.5%** of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. [Eloundou and others, 2023](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv)
- **29%** of work tasks in computer and mathematical occupations, this job's group, are exposed to automation by AI. Not a forecast of job losses. [Goldman Sachs, 2023](https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2023/03/27/d64e052b-0f6e-45d7-967b-d7be35fabd16.pdf)

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend.

## Web Developers employment and pay by year

- On record since: 1991
- Latest US employment: 70,190 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [3]
- Latest US median pay: $92,650 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [6]
- Outlook: +3.8% by 2035. Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 [26]

### In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

- **Canada** (NOC 21234)
  - Employment, 2020: 49,965. Source: Statistics Canada Census 2021 [4]. Statistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 21234 Web developers and programmers, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
  - Median pay, 2020: C$74,500. Source: Statistics Canada Census 2021 [8]. Statistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 21234 Web developers and programmers, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.

### All 8 years of cited US data

| Year | US employment | Annual pay (median unless marked) | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1995 | 5,000 (estimate) | n/a | Est., Digital Silk [1] |
| 1999 | 75,000 (estimate) | $40,800 (estimate) | Est., Digital Silk (employment) [1]; Est., CodeSubmit (pay) [5] |
| 2013 | 112,820 | n/a | BLS OEWS May 2013 [2] |
| 2021 | 84,820 | $77,030 | BLS OEWS May 2021 [3] |
| 2022 | 88,620 | $78,580 | BLS OEWS May 2022 [3] |
| 2023 | 85,350 | $84,960 | BLS OEWS May 2023 [3] |
| 2024 | 78,860 | $90,930 | BLS OEWS May 2024 [3] |
| 2025 | 70,190 | $92,650 | BLS OEWS May 2025 [3] |

## Sources (57)

### Employment series

1. [Digital Silk, "Top 30 Web Development Statistics and Trends" (citing pre-1996 web development company count of under 1,000 in the US)](https://www.digitalsilk.com/web-development/development-trends/web-development-statistics/), Digital Silk
2. [BLS OEWS May 2013, national cross-industry estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm13nat.zip), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
3. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2024](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
4. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021, Table 98-10-0586 (Employment income statistics by occupation unit group, NOC 2021), income reference year 2020](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810058601), Statistics Canada

### Wage series

5. [CodeSubmit, "The Evolution of Developer Salaries: Looking Back 20 Years" (citing CNN Money 2000 entry-level programmer salary of $40,800)](https://www.codesubmit.io/blog/the-evolution-of-developer-salaries), CodeSubmit / CNN Money
6. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
7. [BLS OEWS May 2024, national cross-industry estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
8. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021, Table 98-10-0586 (Employment income statistics by occupation unit group, NOC 2021), income reference year 2020](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810058601), Statistics Canada

### Tool eras

9. [CERN — "A short history of the Web" (Berners-Lee 1989-1993 WorldWideWeb development)](https://home.cern/science/computing/the-birth-of-the-web/short-history-web/), CERN
10. [HISTORY — "The World's First Web Site" (Berners-Lee August 1991 public release)](https://www.history.com/articles/the-worlds-first-web-site), HISTORY
11. [Wikipedia — NCSA Mosaic (January 1993 release; April 1993 source code; inline image display)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCSA_Mosaic), Wikipedia
12. [NCSA — "NCSA Mosaic" project history (National Center for Supercomputing Applications)](https://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/research/project-highlights/ncsa-mosaic/), National Center for Supercomputing Applications
13. [Wikipedia — JavaScript (Brendan Eich, Netscape, May 1995; ECMA-262 standard 1997)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript), Wikipedia
14. [W3Schools — JavaScript History (Mocha/LiveScript/JavaScript naming, Navigator 2.0 December 1995)](https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_history.asp), W3Schools
15. [Wikipedia — PHP (Rasmus Lerdorf 1994; PHP 3 public release 1998)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP), Wikipedia
16. [Digital Silk — "Top 30 Web Development Statistics and Trends" (30,000+ web development companies by 2005)](https://www.digitalsilk.com/web-development/development-trends/web-development-statistics/), Digital Silk
17. [Wikipedia — Ajax (programming) (Jesse James Garrett, February 2005 coinage; Google Maps and Gmail precedents)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28programming%29), Wikipedia
18. [About GitLab — "Journey through Git's 20-year history" (Linus Torvalds April 2005; GitHub April 2008)](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/journey-through-gits-20-year-history/), GitLab
19. [Wikipedia — Node.js (Ryan Dahl, May 2009 release)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js), Wikipedia
20. [Wikipedia — React (JavaScript library) (Facebook open-source release May 2013)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_%28JavaScript_library%29), Wikipedia
21. [Wikipedia — Netlify (Netlify founded 2014; launched 2015; Jamstack concept developed by co-founders)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netlify), Wikipedia
22. [Wikipedia — AWS Lambda (Amazon Web Services, first launched November 2014)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWS_Lambda), Wikipedia
23. [Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, AI tool adoption: 84% of developers use AI coding tools](https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/ai/), Stack Overflow
24. [TechCrunch, "Vibe coding startup Lovable raises $330M at a $6.6B valuation" (December 2025)](https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/18/vibe-coding-startup-lovable-raises-330m-at-a-6-6b-valuation/), TechCrunch
25. [SaaStr, "v0 by Vercel: 6M+ developers on platform, 9.6M projects in 2025"](https://www.saastr.com/saastr-ai-app-of-the-week-v0-by-vercel-the-vibe-coding-tool-that-4-million-people-use-to-ship-real-software-not-just-demos/), SaaStr

### Forecasts and exposure studies

26. [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35, National Employment Matrix: 15-1254 Web developers (2025: 87.4 thousand; 2035: 90.6 thousand; +3.8%)](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-1254&ioType=o), Bureau of Labor Statistics
27. [Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), "GPTs are GPTs", occupation-level exposure data occ\_level.csv (O\*NET-SOC 15-1254.00, human-rated β 0.635)](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv), OpenAI
28. [Briggs & Kodnani, "The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth", Goldman Sachs Global Economics Analyst (26 March 2023), Exhibit 5 (US): computer and mathematical 29%](https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2023/03/27/d64e052b-0f6e-45d7-967b-d7be35fabd16.pdf), Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research

### Historical notes

29. [CERN — "The birth of the Web" (Berners-Lee 1989-1991 timeline)](https://home.cern/fr/science/computing/birth-web/), CERN
30. [NCSA — "NCSA Mosaic" project history (January 1993 release, graphical browser for Windows/Mac)](https://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/research/project-highlights/ncsa-mosaic/), National Center for Supercomputing Applications
31. [Yahoo Finance, "This Day In Market History: The Netscape IPO" ($8.4B in tech IPOs in 1995)](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/day-market-history-netscape-ipo-165511339.html), Yahoo Finance
32. [Wikipedia, Dot-com bubble (NASDAQ March 2000 to October 2002 collapse; 78% decline)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble), Wikipedia
33. [WordPress.org — History (May 27, 2003 launch by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little)](https://wordpress.org/about/history/), WordPress.org
34. [About GitLab, "Journey through Git's 20-year history" (GitHub April 2008 launch; mainstream adoption)](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/journey-through-gits-20-year-history/), GitLab
35. [ASSIST Software, "Web Accessibility 2026: Complete Guide to WCAG Compliance" (European Accessibility Act mandatory June 2025; 95.9% of websites fail WCAG)](https://assist-software.net/business-insights/web-accessibility-2026-complete-guide-wcag-compliance), ASSIST Software

### Predecessors & successors

36. [HISTORY, "The World's First Web Site" (Berners-Lee and early CERN colleagues came from physics computing / programming backgrounds)](https://www.history.com/articles/the-worlds-first-web-site), HISTORY
37. [NCSA Mosaic history, visual web enabled designers without programming backgrounds to enter web work (mid-1990s)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCSA_Mosaic), Wikipedia
38. [O\*NET 15-1254.00, pivot codes and SOC crosswalk (15-1254 practitioners migrate into 15-1252 as backend and systems scope expands)](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1254.00), O\*NET / BLS

### Present-day analysis

- [O\*NET 30.3 — Web Developers (15-1254.00)](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1254.00), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025 — AI tool adoption](https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/ai/), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Eloundou et al. 2024 — GPTs are GPTs (Science)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130), accessed 2026-05-21
- [SaaStr — v0 by Vercel: 4M+ users, 9.6M projects in 2025](https://www.saastr.com/saastr-ai-app-of-the-week-v0-by-vercel-the-vibe-coding-tool-that-4-million-people-use-to-ship-real-software-not-just-demos/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [TechCrunch — Lovable raises $330M at $6.6B valuation (Dec 2025)](https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/18/vibe-coding-startup-lovable-raises-330m-at-a-6-6b-valuation/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [GetPanto — Bolt.new statistics: $40M ARR by March 2025, 5M users](https://www.getpanto.ai/blog/bolt-new-statistics), accessed 2026-05-23
- [LogRocket — Figma AI in 2026: generated code lacks semantic HTML, fails accessibility](https://blog.logrocket.com/ux-design/figma-ai-2026-quick-overview/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Web Standards Commission — Core Web Vitals thresholds updated for 2025 (LCP \< 2.0s)](https://wsc.us.org/article/3), accessed 2026-05-23
- [ASSIST Software — European Accessibility Act mandatory June 2025](https://assist-software.net/business-insights/web-accessibility-2026-complete-guide-wcag-compliance), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Upwork — Will AI Replace Web Developers? 2026 Insights](https://www.upwork.com/resources/ai-replacing-web-developers), accessed 2026-05-23
- [NxCode — v0 vs Bolt vs Lovable comparison 2026: v0 leads React/Next.js code quality at 9.2/10](https://www.nxcode.io/resources/news/v0-vs-bolt-vs-lovable-ai-app-builder-comparison-2025), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Uvik — AI Coding Assistant Statistics 2026 (Cursor $2B ARR Feb 2026)](https://uvik.net/blog/ai-coding-assistant-statistics/), accessed 2026-05-22

How to read these figures: https://futurehistory.earth/methodology. Every figure links to its own source; gaps stay gaps.