• Management advice, News

Discover the latest industry insights from our Team Leads, featured in our quarterly newsletter, The Insider. This quarter, JVM Team Lead, James Prescott highlights the shift away from Java, stagnating salaries and more…

2023 has been a rocky year for the technology sector and the JVM market hasn’t been immune to this. We’ve seen a number of well publicised lay offs earlier this year and it feels like companies have pivoted away from the “high growth” mode that we saw coming out of the pandemic. Let’s get into some details below:

 

JVM popularity declines to 42% 

According to the stack overflow developer survey, JVM languages have seen a decline in popularity in 2023. In part due to the growth of languages like Python and Javascript as well as Java seeing a decline in popularity. However, it’s not all bad news…

 

Kotlin is on the rise

Java may be on the decline but Kotlin is on the rise. This can be backed up by the Stackoverflow survey and google search data but also anecdotally. Based on the conversations we’re having with candidates Kotlin seems to be on a lot of JVM Developers minds. We’re also working with companies who are kicking off new projects and choosing to utilise Kotlin or a Java / Kotlin mix.

 

Stagnating salaries 

Despite steady demand for JVM Developers in the FinTech, Data/AI and cloud space, developers are still feeling the pinch next to rising inflation. The question is: will this change in the next year?

 

Top Sectors 2023

We’re seeing steady demand for JVM developers in FinTech, E-Commerce and Consulting. We’re predicting to see growth in Data Analytics / AI focussed projects as well as continued demand for JVM Developers to do DevOps / Cloud focussed work over the next 12 months.

 

Looking forwards

We’re starting to see some green shoots of recovery and have been having positive conversations with candidates and customers around opportunities and hiring plans for late 2023 / early 2024. We’re expecting to see an uptick in hiring activity albeit with a more cautious / strategic focus vs the high growth hiring of 2021/2022.

To find out more about our Java team and how Formula can help you find your next role, talk to James.

0203 940 7464jamesprescott@formularecruitment.co.uk 

 


 

Written by James Prescott, JVM Team Lead

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