The DevSkiller coding test platform was used to test the skills of 213,782 developers over the past year.

In doing this, we learned a lot about the state of the coding industry. Not just what languages are most common, but also which skills are tested with which. Other insights, like the state of proficiency in certain parts of the world, were uncovered.

All of this information was put together and is ready to access in the DevSkiller top IT skills report 2020.

In this article, we’ve hand-pick a few outcomes that you, the technical developer, may find interesting.

1 - 72% of companies are looking for JavaScript developers

Keeping in fashion from 2019, nearly ¾ companies are looking for JavaScript developers in 2020. The 5 most popular tech stacks haven’t changed, but their popularity has slightly fluctuated. Java’s popularity increases by 5% to 53%, whereas .NET/C# has dropped by the same amount to 36%.

This shows that inarguably, JavaScript is an essential front end IT skill. This statement is supported by the findings in GitHub’s The State of the Octoverse.

In the database world, SQL remains the workhorse IT skill. Java and .NET/C# do fight for the second position, which only goes to show that they do both solve similar problems.

2 - Most developers get a JavaScript IT skills assessment, regardless.

No surprises here that JavaScript is so regularly tested alongside other languages.

Having looked at the top eight languages tested side by side this year, we found that there was actually a lot of change from last year.

JavaScript+CSS take the top spot, while last year’s winner, Java+SQL drops to third place. Front and back end technologies continue to be tested together.

Another common trend is front and back end technologies mixed with SQL and Java as well as PHP coupled with SQL.

The findings here are quite clear.

When it comes to full-stack development, JavaScript is most desired for front end and SQL is the go-to skill for a server-side tech stack.

3 - The US is just the 4th largest labor market for overseas recruitment

Furthermore, almost 25% of US candidates are recruited from abroad.

This makes it the largest international recruiter in the world, but it’s only the 4th largest market for overseas recruitment.

This says nothing about the desirability of US developers, but more to the desirability of non-US developers. India, Brazil, and Egypt have talent pools that are growing at an astonishing rate and have pushed the US down from the second spot in 2019, to the fourth spot in 2020.

Looking closer at where the US recruits from, it’s no surprise to see the same top 3 countries - India, Brazil, and Egypt - as the most popular sources of talent for US companies.

Mexico and Argentina are also some of the US’s most sought after foreign talent pools. This is more than likely because they all fall into similar timezones.

The United Kindom’s most recruited counties include India, the US, and Russia, followed by Nigeria and Pakistan.

The overall trend is one that points to developed economies having an efficient allocation of IT skills.

4 - Latvian developers score the highest

Latvian developers score an average of 54.65%, making them the highest-scoring developers.

The Netherlands and Italy wind out the top 3.

As you can see from the picture above, only 4 of the top 10 countries are outside of Europe.

But more accurately, this information goes to show that coding tests are being used differently by recruiters.

Recruiters are creating tests that are better suited to the role that’s being interviewed for. This is a contrast to the dying theory that coding tests are used to test the overall skills of a developer.

5 - Israel is the most selective country

As a result of coding tests being more specific for the role, we see that companies are also getting more selective.

Israeli companies are considering only 12.26% of candidates for the role.

In fact, Israel, Luxembourg, Malaysia, and Singapore are all more selective than the most selective country (Singapore) of last year at 20%.

What this information shows is that tests are targetted to more appropriately skilled candidates. Wider talent pools have allowed recruiters to laser-focus their desired skills, and therefore test accordingly.

Winding-up

Being privy to so much information has allowed DevSkiller to extrapolate these trends from the data.

If you’d like to see the full report, download it below:

DevSkiller’s top IT skills report 2020

This information that your business can use to make the right tech development decisions to stay competitive in your industry

Cover image: Jamie Street on Unsplash