Programming Language Job Demand Index — Which to Learn in 2026<br>Skip to main content
Live RankingsFree<br>Programming Language Demand Index<br>Ranked by active job listings across data engineering, backend, AI and web roles. See which languages employers are hiring for right now and how demand is shifting week over week.
How this data works
Languages tracked
16<br>Across data, backend, AI and web
Active listings
245<br>Currently indexed across all languages
Top language
Scala<br>81 active listings
Data cadence
Weekly<br>New snapshots from active job postings
All languages — ranked by job demand<br>#1Data and Backend<br>Scala
JVM language powering Apache Spark and Kafka Streams<br>Active listings<br>81
7-day trend
#2Data, AI and Backend<br>Python
The dominant language for data engineering, machine learning and scripting<br>Active listings<br>40
7-day trend
#3Data and Analytics<br>SQL
The universal language of data — querying, transforming and analysing structured data<br>Active listings<br>31
7-day trend
#4Backend and DevOps<br>Go
High-performance backend services, CLIs and infrastructure tooling<br>Active listings<br>24
7-day trend
#5Backend and Data<br>Java
Enterprise backend and data platform language — Spark, Kafka and Flink run on the JVM<br>Active listings<br>23
7-day trend
#6Backend and Mobile<br>Kotlin
Modern JVM language used in Android and backend services<br>Active listings<br>10
7-day trend
#7Frontend and Full Stack<br>TypeScript
Typed superset of JavaScript used across the full stack<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#8Systems and Infrastructure<br>Rust
Memory-safe systems programming — increasingly used in data tools like Polars and Delta-rs<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#9Frontend and Full Stack<br>JavaScript
The language of the web — frontend, backend and tooling<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#10Data Science and Statistics
Statistical computing and data visualisation — dominant in academia and research<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#11Backend and Enterprise<br>C#
.NET ecosystem for enterprise backends and cloud services<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#12Systems and ML<br>C++
High-performance systems code — ML inference engines and embedded systems<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#13Web Backend<br>Ruby
Expressive backend language — Ruby on Rails and data scripting<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#14DevOps and Automation<br>Bash / Shell
Shell scripting for automation, CI/CD pipelines and data workflows<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#15Mobile and Apple<br>Swift
Apple platform development — iOS, macOS and server-side Swift<br>Active listings
7-day trend
#16Web Backend<br>PHP
Server-side web development — powers a large share of the web<br>Active listings
7-day trend
How rankings are calculated<br>Active job listings<br>Each language is matched against skills extracted from real job listings scraped daily. Only currently active listings are counted — expired roles are excluded.
Weekly trend<br>The trend delta shows the change in listing count between the two most recent weekly snapshots. A positive number means demand increased; negative means it fell.
Explore related intelligence<br>Skill Trends<br>Live rankings across all tech skills
AI & ML<br>Skills and roles in AI engineering
Market Statistics<br>Snapshot metrics from the live index
Skill Spotlights<br>Deep dives on individual skills
Based on active job listings across data, backend, AI and web categories · Updated weekly