Top-earning coding languages

Rumor has it that you can make $133K a year as a software developer. Well, that is actually not a rumor. That is the salary of a developer proficient in the highest-paid programming languages. Do you want to know which languages will give you that prosperous future you are dreaming about? Here is the list.

Ten top-earning programming languages in the world according to Statista:

1. Clojure 

Clojure is a functional and dynamic programming language. It is a dialect of Lisp that uses the Java platform. Like other Lisp dialects, Clojure looks at code as data and has the Lisp macro system. Rich Hickey first created it as a dynamic and functional language. These days a community led by Mr. Hickey himself continues Clojure’s development.

Clojure developers earn an average of $100K+ a year.

2. F#

Developers use the F# (pronounced F sharp) language to create robust, efficient, and concise code. Numerous organizations, including the F# Software Foundation, Microsoft, and open contributors, work together to develop F#. Using F#, you can write clean, self-documenting code, keeping your focus on your problem domain rather than wasting time on the details of programming. It is open-source, cross-platform, and interoperable.

According to Indeed.com, an F# developer’s salary is averaging at about $102K+ a year 

3. Elixir

Elixir is a functional, concurrent, general-purpose coding language. It works on the BEAM virtual machine that also executes the Erlang programming language. Many industries use Elixir to develop web software, embedded software, data ingestion, and multimedia processing. The top companies to use Elixir are Discord, Pinterest, Ramp, PagerDuty, Brex, etc. 

The average salary for an Elixir developer is $80K+ a year.

4. Erlang

To create scalable real-time soft systems that demand high availability, developers use Erlang. It is used in telecommunications, banking, business e-commerce, and instant messaging. Ericsson developed Erlang in 1986 with the help of Joe Armstrong, Robert Virding, and Mike Williams. Later it was released as free and open-source software (1998). Erlang is maintained and supported by Ericsson’s Open Telecom Platform.

The salary of an Erlang developer is also around $80K+ a year.

5. Perl

Perl was initially created for text manipulation but is utilized for various purposes, including system administration, web development, network programming, GUI development, etc. It is actually a family of languages. Another language, “Raku” (formerly Perl 6), is part of the Perl family, but it is an independent language with a separate development team. Its existence has little impact on the continued development of “Perl.” With over 30 years of development, Perl has proven to be a highly capable, feature-rich programming language. It is suitable for rapid prototyping and large-scale development projects and runs on over 100 platforms, from portables to mainframes.

Perl coders make an average of $80K+ a year.

6. Ruby

The Ruby coding language is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted language that supports multiple programming paradigms. Japanese developer Yukihiro Matsumoto created Ruby in the mid-1990s. It was created with a strong emphasis on simplicity and productivity, with its elegant syntax that is easy to read and write.

Ruby developers earn an average of $86K+ a year.

7. Scala

In Scala, you get both object-oriented and functional programming benefits. It is a strongly statically typed language that helps avoid bugs in complex applications. Using its JVM and JavaScript runtimes, you can create high-performance systems with access to a vast ecosystem of libraries.

On average, Scala developers make $77K a year.

8. Rust

Rust provides high performance similar to C and C++, emphasizing code safety, which is the biggest weakness of these two languages. Another reason well-known software heavyweights now use this coding language is its high performance while processing large amounts of data, concurrent programming support, and effective compiler. Big corporations like Dropbox, Firefox and startups use Rust in their development. 

An average salary of a Rust developer is $77K a year.

9. Go

Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson designed the Go programming language at Google. It is syntactically similar to C but has additional features like memory safety, structural typing, garbage collection, and CSP-style concurrency. The main characteristic of Go (also known as Golang) is that it’s built to be simple, high-performing, readable, and efficient.

Go is used for backend programming, game development, cloud-based programming, and even Data Science. It is also widely used for making command-line tools. Google, Dropbox, and Netflix use Go in their programming.

Go developers make, on average, $75K a year.

10. Lisp

LISP is the second oldest coding language. John McCarthy created it in 1960 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). LISP is based on the mathematical theory of recursive functions and has significantly changed since its early days. Lisp is a family of programming languages with many dialects throughout its history. With it being one of the earliest programming languages, Lisp introduced many ideas in computer science, including tree data structures, automatic storage management, dynamic typing, conditionals, higher-order functions, recursion, the self-hosting compiler, and the read–eval–print loop.

An average Lisp developer makes $70K per year.

What is the best programming language to learn?

The decision is, of course, entirely up to you. Here at Lemon.io, we welcome developers with different stacks and experience levels. If you are curious about the top-earning languages at Lemon.io (based on our experience and market demand), we will not keep it from you. Yes, we are transparent like that! Here are our top-earning coding languages and technologies:

Curious about how to find a job at Lemon.io as a remote developer? Fill out our form and join the Lemonverse. It’s that simple!

And now it's time for our ubiquitous brief FAQ!

• What programming language has the highest salary? 

  According to the newest numerical data from 2021 and 2022, the list of the programming languages with the highest salaries looks like this:
  Go (used in Uber, SoundCloud, Netflix) — up to 110K per year
  Scala — up to 110K per year
  Objective-C — approximately 100-110K per year
  CoffeeScript — 105K on average
  R — 100K on average
  TypeScript — 100K 
  SQL (used in Google, IBM, Oracle, Amazon) — 70-90K yearly
  

• Which language pays more, Java or Python?

  In the Java vs. Python battle, Python is definitely a winner — it’s trendy, it’s popular. it’s more universal. and. therefore, you can earn more money if you know it. Python is widely used in AI development, sentiment analysis, and applied linguistics (dictionaries, corpora). Contrary to Python, the usage of Java is confined to a specific niche. Python is also more paid.

• Is Python enough to get a job? 

  To put it briefly, knowledge of Python alone can be enough for you to get a programming job — however, it’s always more beneficial to know something more than just one programming language so that you could be more competitively viable on the wide stage. 
  

• Which is better for jobs — C++ or Java?

  There is no definite answer to such a broad question — to answer it more precisely, we’d probably need to obtain more relevant information about the additional tech stack of the programmer in question, their soft and hard skills, and the level of experience and whatnot. However, it’s precisely Java enjoying a new wave of popularity thanks to its adoption by Android.