SANTA CRUZ, Ca. June 20, 2012 - The median age of software developers in North America has declined significantly since reaching a peak of 46 in 2008. Today the median age is 38. This makes North American developers statistically younger than developers in EMEA with a median age of 39, though still older than those in the APAC region or Latin America where the medians are 34 and 35 respectively. The median age is the age at which half are older and half are younger.

Although the median age in North America has declined, the mean (or average) age has remained relatively high at 44 indicating that this value is being supported by some very old developers who have not yet left programming, but are relatively few in number. Both the median and mean age of developers in other regions have been increasing steadily for the last several years.

“The median age decline in North America is interesting and most likely reflects two situations we've been experiencing since 2008,” said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp. “The advent of mobile with new devices and distribution channels has attracted younger developers, while at the same time the recession has resulted in many older developers retiring or being laid off.”

The age information is taken from Evans Data’s newly released Global Development Survey, an ongoing comprehensive technology survey of over 1200 software developers worldwide with regional focus on North America, EMEA and APAC. The survey covers demographics as well as platform, languages, mobile development, cloud development, high performance computing, app distribution, technology and tool adoption and other topics. See complete table of contents here:

http://www.evansdata.com/reports/viewRelease.php?reportID=1

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2012 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

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