If you’re considering a career in web development, you’ve no doubt got lots of questions about the field.
What programming languages should you learn? What’s the job market like? What kind of salary can you expect with your new job title?
There are many different routes you can take within web development, and your earning potential depends on a variety of factors.
One possible career path is JavaScript development—a highly sought-after area of expertise! In this guide, we’ll look at how much you could earn as a JavaScript developer.
Before we examine that all-important salary data, we’ll first explore the job title in more detail. We’ll also look at whether JavaScript developers are currently in high demand. If you’re keen to get straight to the money, just use the clickable menu below to skip ahead.
- What is a JavaScript developer?
- Are JavaScript developers in demand?
- JavaScript developer salaries around the world
- JavaScript developer salaries by city
- JavaScript developer salaries based on years of experience
- JavaScript developer salaries based on company size
How much could you earn as a JavaScript developer? Let’s find out!
1. What is a JavaScript developer?
First things first: What exactly are these kinds of developer?
Together with HTML and CSS, JavaScript is one of the cornerstone technologies of the web. In very simplistic terms, it is a programming language used to add interactivity to a webpage.
JavaScript is an integral part of web functionality, and is therefore supported across all web browsers and tools.
JavaScript developers are, of course, experts in JavaScript—but what does that actually mean in terms of day-to-day tasks?
Essentially, they are responsible for implementing the frontend logic that defines how the visual elements of a web app behave. Typically these developers work on the frontend, supported closely by backend developers and other frontend developers who specialize in markup and styling. You can learn all about the difference between frontend and backend development in this guide.
To gain a better overview of what a career as a JavaScript developer entails, let’s consider some real-world job descriptions.
JavaScript developer job descriptions
A quick search on LinkedIn returns over 16,000 JavaScript developer jobs in the United States alone at the moment. So, now that you know that it’s in demand, let’s look at the role some more.
To give you an idea of what someone in this role actually does, we’ve taken a few snippets from some live job ads.
Our first example is a job ad posted by Apple, which describes the JavaScript developer role as follows:
In this role, you will have the opportunity to interact directly with our users and management to understand their requirements and impact their experience through the design and implementation of new features and customizations.
Are you a JavaScript expert? Do you take pride in building custom tools to meet others’ needs? Then you would be an excellent addition to our team. We use many frontend technologies such as JavaScript, React.js, HTML, CSS, and also build many macros around Atlassian products and scripts in a Linux environment…
Under key qualifications, they ask for a deep understanding of frontend JavaScript development together with expertise in JavaScript libraries such as React.js and Redux. Desirable skills include experience with MySQL and scripting in Python and Perl.
Our second example was posted by Grand Canyon Education, Inc. Here’s how they describe the role:
[The JavaScript developer] reports to the Sr. Web Development Manager, works collaboratively with various members within the marketing department including web designers, backend developers, digital marketing specialists, assigned marketing partners, executing frontend development throughout GCU’s web properties. The JavaScript Developer works on frontend development initiatives and has knowledge of frontend development best practices.
The JavaScript developer tests and executes web enhancements resulting in improved user experiences, increased rankings, and overall improvements to GCU web properties. Works collaboratively with the marketing team project lead on the implementation of web marketing plans which support GCU’s total marketing strategy.
Among the skills and qualifications required for this role are:
- Experience using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build dynamic websites or web applications.
- Experience with React, Angular, or Vue.
- Strong knowledge of web markup, including HTML5 and CSS3.
- Strong knowledge of native JavaScript, including ES5, ES6, and a strong understanding of browser compatibility implications.
- Proficiency with jQuery and Bootstrap frameworks.
To learn more about the skills and qualifications required for a career in JavaScript development, we recommend browsing job sites such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and GitHub Jobs.
2. Are JavaScript developers in demand?
If you’re considering a career as a JavaScript developer, you’ll be pleased to hear that JavaScript is one of the most sought-after skills in the programming industry today.
In their IT Skills Report, tech recruiting platform DevSkiller unveiled some interesting insights into current developer hiring trends. Based on their analysis of over 200,000 coding tests in 143 countries, they found that 34.8% of companies testing for junior roles tested for JavaScript developers.
A report by HackerRank, meanwhile, found that the global demand for JavaScript outweighs the expertise available on the market.
According to their report, 53.6% of employers worldwide say they need JavaScript skills, yet only 42% of student developers say they are proficient in the language.
So, if you plan on becoming a JavaScript expert, you can expect to be highly employable.
3. JavaScript developer salaries around the world
So far, we know that these kinds of programmer are in demand—but what’s the earning potential behind this sought-after job title?
In general, the 2022 State of JS survey asked over 28,000 JavaScript developers around the world what their salary, and the overall majority (28.3%) reporting a salary of between US $50–100k per year, followed by 18.8% earning between US $100-200k annually. Only 17.1% of JavaScript developers who responded reported earning the equivalent of US $30–50k per year.
Based on the most recent salary data available, here’s what JavaScript developers are earning around the world:
- Australia: $121,000 AU per year (Indeed)
- Canada: CA $72,000 per year (Indeed)
- Germany: €62,000 per year (Indeed)
- India: ₹ 5,47,982 per year (Indeed)
- South Africa: R 1531 353 per year (Indeed)
- United Kingdom: £56,000 per year (Indeed)
- United States: $110,000 per year (Indeed)
Location is not the only factor that affects your salary. Next, we’ll look at these salaries based on years of experience.
4. JavaScript developer salaries by city
While it’s all well and good getting a little slice of what the pay outlook is like worldwide, it’s even more useful to drill down a little more.
Examining how much programmers fluent in JS can expect to earn on a city-by-city basis can give you a more accurate picture. So with that, let’s take a look in a selection of major cities on both sides of the Atlantic, using salary data from Glassdoor.
North American gross JavaScript developer salaries
- Austin: $110,000
- Boston: $137,000
- Chicago: $101,000
- Houston: $104,000
- Los Angeles: $101,000
- Montreal: CA$77,000 ($60,949)
- New York: $118,000
- Philadelphia: $105,105
- Phoenix: $98,134
- Portland: $100,865
- San Francisco: $126,000
- Seattle: $141,000
- Toronto: CA$72,000 ($59,366)
- Washington DC: $125,000
- Vancouver: CA$87,000 ($68,864)
As you can see, JavaScript developers can find themselves earning a cool six figures in most major US cities such as Portland and Austin. What’s perhaps a little surprising that they stand to earn as much in Washington DC and Boston than in New York and San Francisco, which typically command higher tech wages.
Again, more demand for other coding languages or skillsets can explain this, so it’s useful to compare with full-stack developer salaries to get more of an idea.
Now that we’ve covered that continent, let’s take a trip east across the ocean to see the state of average JavaScript developer salaries in Europe.
JavaScript developer salaries by European city
We’ve collected the average salary data from Glassdoor for various large European cities so that you can easily see what to expect. If you’d like to check the dollar equivalent, a simple currency calculator will do that for you.
- Amsterdam: €66,000
- Barcelona: €39,000
- Berlin: €53,000
- Brussels: €40,000
- Dublin: €64,000
- Hamburg: €60,000
- Lisbon: €17,000
- London: £65,000 (€75,000)
- Madrid: €35,000
- Munich: €60,000
- Paris: €44,000
- Rome: €38,000
Even more than in North America, it’s important to consider here the cost of living in each city when looking at whether it’s the one that you’d like to start applying for JavaScript developer salaries in.
Earning just under £60,000 in an expensive city like London could provide a lower standard of living than earning €38,000 in a more reasonable city such as Rome.
5. JavaScript developer salaries based on years of experience
As with most career paths, you can expect your salary to increase as you gain more experience in the field.
With the help of PayScale’s salary data, we’ve put together a snapshot of average JavaScript developer salaries in the United States based on years of experience.
- Less than 1 year of experience: $63,973 per year
- 1-4 years: $71,022 per year
- 5-9 years: $86,281 per year
- 10-19 years: $101,697
- 20 years or more: $123,274
6. JavaScript developer salaries based on company size
To round off our salary report, we investigated whether company size also has an impact on how much you can earn as a JavaScript expert in the United States. Once again, we’ve referred to the most recent data available on PayScale.
- 1-9 employees: $73,202
- 10-49 employees: $72,081
- 50-199 employees: $78,114
- 200-599 employees: $81,377
- 600-1,999 employees: $84,838
- 2,000-4,999 employees: $84,738
- 5,000-19,999 employees: $89,866
- 20,000-49,999 employees: $88,860
- 50,000+ employees: $88,650
Perhaps unsurprisingly, larger companies tend to pay developers specializing in this language a slightly higher salary. However, whether you choose to work for a small startup or a major corporation, you can expect a competitive rate of pay as a JavaScript expert.
Wrap-up
As you can see, JavaScript developers are both in-demand and well-paid.
While salaries do vary from company to company and city to city, JavaScript is a skill that will render you highly employable in virtually every market across any industry. If you’re keen to forge a career as a JavaScript expert, be sure to check out the following resources: