Javascript skills in demand as employers increasingly look for coding experience

Data from job search platform Joblift shows rapid increase in job vacancies requiring programming experience, with Javascript topping recruiters needs

Javascript is the most in demand coding language for employers, against a background of an increasing number of UK-based job vacancies requiring some experience of programming languages.

Data from job search platform Joblift showed that the demand for candidates with programming language skills has risen by an average of four per cent year on year, with Javascript the most required skill.

JavaScript was mentioned in 42 per cent of vacancies, ahead of second place Java (30 per cent), and C# (25 per cent) which ranked in third place. Following these, Python was mentioned in 19 per cent of job ads, with PHP rounding off the top five with 13 per cent of mentions.

With less than one per cent of all mentions, Lua, Haskell and Groovy were the least requested programming languages in job advertisements.

Seven per cent of all job vacancies posted in the UK over the last 12 months, which numbered just under one million, have requested some level of programming expertise.

On average across the UK programmers earn around £42,000 per year. However with demand for skills high, this figure looks to be increasing, with a third of postings requiring programming skills advertising a wage of £50,000 or more (exclusing postings which didn't advertise a salary).

Programming skills, and the cultural shift towards developers working in tandem with operations staff will be discussed in depth at Computing's upcoming DevOps North Live event in Manchester on 18th September. Delegate places and sponsorship packages are available.