Web Developer Salary: A Breakdown of the Costs
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Global Web Developer Salary Trends in 2024

Gabriela Molina
Journalist, Director of Content at DistantJob - - - 3 min. to read

Web developers belong to the fastest-growing tech occupation in terms of employment, with the field expected to grow by 13% from 2020 to 2030. This is higher than the average for all jobs filed in the United States.

However, while advanced web development roles often have high salaries due to their increased demand, not all web developers earn equally lucrative incomes. Different factors contribute to this disparity, making exploring web developer salaries complex. 

web developer’s salary can go from $40,000 to $190,000+ depending on their location, level of education, experience, and specialization (full stack, front-end, or backend).

Whether you’re a web developer curious about earning potential or a hiring manager seeking insights for upcoming positions, during this article, we’ll explore the salaries of web developers on a global scale, taking into account these influential factors. 

How Much Do Web Developers Make in the U.S.? 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for web developers in the U.S. is $75,580 per year, equivalent to $37.78 per hour. 

The top earners, who belong to the 90th percentile, earn $144,690 annually or $69.56 per hour, while the lowest earners, at the 10th percentile, earn $40,460 per year or $19.45 per hour.

How much do web developers make

Platforms like Zippia and Indeed estimate similar values for web developer salaries in 2024. According to Indeed, a web developer’s salary in the U.S. is $79,778 per year or $32.35 per hour. 

Indeed web developer salary in the U.S.

Zippia estimates an average web developer salary of $78,975 per year or $37.97 per hour.

Zippia

Other platforms estimate higher earnings for web developer salaries. According to research by ZipRecruiter, a web developer in the U.S. earns $93,848 per year or $45 per hour. 

ZipRecruiter

Talent.com estimates a similar value, with web developers earning an annual salary of $92,697 or $44.57 per hour.

Talent web dev salary

Considering these comparable salary figures, we can estimate the average annual salary of a web developer in the U.S. to be $84,175, translating to an hourly rate of approximately $40.49.

Web Developer Salaries: U.S. States

The salary of a web developer will also depend on where they are based. Usually, a web developer living in New York is likely to earn significantly more than a web developer living in Vermont.

These are the states with the highest salaries in the U.S. for website developers (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

StateHourly RateAnnual Wage
Washington $65.14$135,490
Delaware$52.75$109,720
District of Columbia$52.57$109,350
California$50.18$104,370
Maryland$50.06$104,130

The states with the lowest annual salaries for web developers are: 

StateHourly RateAnnual Wage
Connecticut$26.52 $55,212
Rhode Island$25.48$52,985
Vermont$23.95$49,841
Alaska$38.29$79,554
West Virginia $35.25$73,294

Web Development Salaries Per Country

One of the main reasons why many U.S. companies hire abroad is to expand their talent pool with better talent while paying lower salaries.

But by how much lower are these salaries? Due to the lower cost of living in many other countries, salaries that might appear low by U.S. standards can actually be considered competitive or even high within the context of those countries.

In the table below, you’ll see the average salary of web developers in different countries according to Indeed, Talent, Salary, and Glassdoor: 

CountryHourly RateAnnual Wage
Canada$37.66$78,333
Mexico$23.65$49,227
Brazil$23.37$48,700
Argentina$16.94 $35,228
Germany$30.80$64,075
Sweden$32.76$68,168
Romania$15.89 $33,088
Poland$21.46$44,636 
Ukraine$15.48 $32,190
India$16.59$34,500
The Philippines $14.18$29,504

North America, specifically the U.S. and Canada, has the highest salaries of all countries. Latin America has affordable salaries as well as other regions like Eastern Europe and Asia. 

Does Specialization Influence Job Salaries?

Besides location, salaries in web development depend on specialization and languages used. Web development roles are often divided into Front-end developers, back-end developers, and full-stack developers.

Generally, front-end developers earn the lowest salaries of the three specializations, while full-stack and back-end developers earn more than the average. 

Salaries for Frontend Developers

  • Indeed – The average salary is $113,524 
  • Built In – The average salary is $134,576
  • Glassdoor – The average salary is $90,308

Salaries for Backend Developers

  • Indeed – The average salary is $156,937
  • Built In – The average salary is $153,979
  • Glassdoor – The average salary is $113,080 

Salaries for Full Stack Web Developers

  • Indeed – The average salary is $123,384
  • Built In – The average salary is $147,280
  • Glassdoor – The average salary is $103,510

Web Developer Salary by Language

Tech stack plays a huge role in determining how much a web developer can earn. Let’s see a quick breakdown of the leading web development languages and the average pay for web developers, starting from the highest to the least.

Average web developer salary by language gotten from PayScale data: 

Programming LanguageAverage Web Developer Salary
Scala$118,000
Go$118,000
Rust$102,000
Kotlin$101,000
Ruby$101,000
Perl$97,000
Java$93,000
Python$92,000
C$92,000
C++$90,000
JavaScript$85,000
C#$82,000
SQL$80,000
PHP$72,000
HTML$69,000
CSS$67,000
Visual Basic$59,913

Conclusion

How much do web developers make? As we’ve explored in the article, the salaries of web developers depend mainly on factors such as location, expertise, and the tech stack developers use.

These are some of the key points deducted from our previous research: 

  • The average salary for web developers in the U.S. is $75,580 per year.
  • The U.S. remains the most expensive country to hire web developers, while South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia are the regions with affordable web developers. 
  • Scala is the highest-paid language with developers earning an average salary of $118,000 annually. The language with the least earning potential currently is CSS.
  • Backend and full-stack developers earn higher salaries than frontend developers. 

Saving costs while hiring top-tier developers is often challenging, particularly when you don’t know your way around IT recruitment. But by partnering with IT staffing agencies like us, we can help you hire skilled web developers in less than 14 days. 

At DistantJob, we not only recruit and evaluate potential candidates, but we also provide EOR services helping you seamlessly hire global developers. 

Want to know more? Book a discovery call today!

Gabriela Molina

Gabriela Molina is the Executive Editor at DistantJob, a specialized recruitment agency focused on sourcing top-tier remote developers. Gabriela leverages her journalistic background and deep tech sector knowledge to provide unique insights into remote work.

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