Technology recruiters say they are struggling to find experienced full-stack engineers to meet the growing demand for web app development in a candidate-driven tech jobs market.
Developer recruitment platform CodinGame and online technical assessment platform CoderPad surveyed 4,000 tech recruiters to identify the most in-demand tech roles, technical skills, programming languages and frameworks in 2022.
Over 10,000 developers were also polled to identify whether their skillsets and professional aspirations were aligned with the needs of employers.
The top three skills recruiters are looking to hire for this year are web development, DevOps and AI/machine learning, the survey found.
While DevOps leapfrogged full-stack and back-end engineers in 2021 to become the most in-demand job role, data from respondents suggested this trend had reversed in 2022.
More than a third of tech recruiters (36%) polled said that they were struggling to find experienced full-stack engineers in a competitive hiring market, while 35% of recruiters said there was strong demand for back-end engineers.
Highly specialized jobs such as software architects, data scientists and machine-learning specialists were also identified as an area of concern for recruiters, owing to there being just a small pool of experienced developers with the necessary skillsets.
With demand for AI/machine learning skills in particular growing, recruiters are predicting they will face hiring difficulties in the short to medium term, the survey said.
For the fourth year running, JavaScript was identified as the most in-demand programming language, with almost half of tech recruiters (48%) surveyed seeking developers proficient in JavaScript. Almost two-thirds of developers (64%) polled said they were proficient in JavaScript.
Java and Python rounded out the top three positions as they did in 2021. The survey noted that Java is highly scalable, making it popular with fast-growth enterprises and startups. It also underpins the two billion device-strong Android market.
February 18, 2022
By Owen Hughes