iOS and Mac developer demographics - Fall 2015

iOS and Mac developer survey - October 2015

Our iOS and Mac developer Slack group has grown! The group now has over 200 developers from the Utah area. We ran the survey again using polldaddy.com. 95 people responded. We added a few new questions around education that produced some very interesting results.

What type of development do you do? (allowed multiple selections)

iOS	94	98.9%
Mac	19	20.0%
Android	14	14.7%
Other	9	9.5%

What type of iOS apps do you develop? (allowed multiple selections)

Productivity/Business	70	73.7%
Utilities	37	38.9%
Education	34	35.8%
Social Networking	23	24.2%
Health or medical	20	21.1%
Entertainment	17	17.9%
Games	17	17.9%
Other	6	6.3%

How much do you use Swift?

All my new projects are in Swift	47	49%
Everything	20	21%
Some	18	19%
None yet	10	11%

My programming education includes: (allowed multiple selections)

Self taught	48	50.5%
A college degree in CS or CE	47	49.5%
A college degree (other)	25	26.3%
A code bootcamp like Dev Mountain	15	15.8%
Formal, online code classes	7	7.4%
Other	5	5.3%

How long have you been programming professionally? 

How long have you been programming iOS/Mac?

How do the apps you have developed recently make money? (allowed multiple selections)

They don’t need to directly (e.g. banking app)	48	50.5%
Paid app	37	38.9%
IAP	23	24.2%
VC funded, not worrying about that right now	18	18.9%
Subscriptions	17	17.9%
Ads	10	10.5%
Other	7	7.4%

How do you primarily make money from apps/mobile ecosystem?

I work full time for a company	49	51.6%
Publishing apps that I develop	37	38.9%
Contract app development	23	24.2%
Teaching others how to do it	18	18.9%
Other	17	17.9%
Making tools for other developers	10	10.5%
I work part time for a company	7	7.4%

If you work full time for someone else, what is your annual salary?

- Average $106,000

If you work full time for someone else, what other benefits do you get?

Paid Vacation	67	93.1%
Health Insurance	67	93.1%
401k/retirement	44	61.1%
iDevices, as needed	39	54.2%
Stock options	35	48.6%
Pays for service plan for iPhone	14	19.4%
Other	9	12.5%
Profit Sharing	7	9.7%

Do you do contract app development? Or does the company you work for hire you out…

Sometimes, on the side	44	46.0%
No	42	44.0%
Yes, full time	9	9.0%

What is your (or your employer's) hourly rate for contract app development?

- Average $103/hr

iOS and Mac developer demographics

A slack group has assembled recently in the Utah area around iOS and Mac development. It's become a nice little group. But I'm curious how it differs from the developer community from 2009, when I first started getting into iOS development. So I put together two quick polls. One specifically covered salaries and benefits. The other poll covered everything else. I'll cover the bigger one first.

What type of Developer are you? (52 responses)

iOS	52	100%
Mac	10	19.2%
Android	4	7.7%

What type of iOS apps do you develop? (52 responses)

Productivity/Business	43	82.7%
Utilities	21	40.4%
Games	8	15.4%
Entertainment	8	15.4%
Health	2	3.8%
Social Networking	1	1.9%
Education	1	1.9%
IOT	1	1.9%
Music	1	1.9%

Are you using Swift yet? (51 responses)

Some	27	52.9%
Not Yet	14	27.5%
Only	10	19.6%
Never!	0	0.0%

I asked what people were using to develop apps. e.g. Xcode, App Code, Xamarin.
4% were using App Code. Everyone else used Xcode.

How do the apps you have developed recently make money? (52 responses)

App doesn't need to make money directly (e.g. banking app)	22	42.3%
Paid App	15	28.8%
Other	3	5.8%
IAP	7	13.5%
Ads	1	1.9%
VC Funded	1	1.9%
IAP+Ads	1	1.9%
Both Paid and IAP	2	3.8%

How do you primarily make money from apps? (52 responses)

I develop apps for a company	33	63.5%
I publish apps myself	9	17.3%
I do contract app development	7	13.5%
I work for Apple	2	3.8%
Teaching	1	1.9%

Do you do contract app development? (52 responses)

Sometimes, on the side	32	61.5%
No	15	28.8%
Yes, full time	5	9.6%

What is your (or your employer's) hourly rate for contract app development? (37 responses)

The average rate was $104. If I remove some of the outliers, the average is $112.

Salaries and benefits poll (35 responses):

This poll ran separately from the above.

The average over the whole dataset was $105,000. I tried to exclude some of the outliers ($85k to $130k) and the average was $112,000. But that is a pretty strong signal at $120k.

Benefits:

Health Insurance	31	91.2%
401k/Retirement	22	64.7%
Free iDevices, as needed	18	52.9%
Stock Options	19	55.9%
Profit Sharing	6	17.6%
Pays for service plan for iPhone	5	14.7%