Countries with Highest Educated Developers

Your company, like many others, might be interested in hiring developers from countries known for high educational standards. While finding talent based on education can simplify the hiring process, there isn't a readily available list of countries with the highest-educated developers. So, we created one.

In this article, we explore countries with the most educated developers and examine the growth of software development in these regions. Ranking countries by education levels is straightforward, but evaluating their exposure to software development is more complex.

To compile this list, we considered the following factors:

• The OECD ranking of well-educated countries
• Top universities according to the TIMES Higher Education 2023 list and other assessments
• The number of developers in each country, based on existing data, and other key metrics

We also included countries that may not rank high on the OECD list but have a strong reputation for skilled developers.

10 Countries with the Highest Educated Developers

Here are the countries with developers of high education levels per country, in no particular order:

Canada

According to the 2022 OECD ranking, Canada is the world's most educated country by 59.96%. And while software development is the globally most in-demand profession, Canada has the highest demand for tech talent.

The New York Times did a feature story detailing how Toronto, its capital, has become a host for the software development industry boom, becoming the North’s Silicon Valley. The University of Toronto ranks no.10th of the top software engineering-focused universities worldwide for their academic reputation and employer recommendation.

According to GitHub, there are 399,000 new developers in the country, and this number will keep increasing due to the encouraging growth of software development. The government’s openness to migration has also made it one of the most diverse countries for developers of every race, class, and gender. These make Canada one of the places to hire trusted developers.

United States

According to OECD data, the USA has a 50.06% rate of high education on a per-country metric. Its average literacy rate is 79%, and it has been an influential country in defining software development talent and the industry.

The U.S. has 92 engineering and technology schools. It claims the top 4 spots for software engineering colleges globally, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, and Carnegie Mellon University.

There are 4.4 million developers in the country, and 680,000 among them are software engineers with knowledge of software engineering, design, development, testing, maintenance, and computer science & evaluation.

US-based Silicon Valley is considered the tech capital of the world. This means there's an inexhaustible talent pool in the US for your company’s needs. You may read this guide on platforms to hire developers to ease the hiring process.

The United Kingdom

According to OECD, the UK’s education level per country is 49.39%, and its literacy rate is 99%. Some of the world’s best computer science and software engineering institutions are located there, including the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

London, the UK's capital city, is considered the largest and most technologically advanced city in Europe. It has a large talent hub and is named the second-best city for startups globally because of the opportunities for startups and developers with varied expertise.

There are over 466,000 programmers and software developers in the UK. GitHub says there were 488,000 new entrants. This means you can tap into this almost one million talent bank in the UK, even if you’re a startup looking to develop your product for a UK-based or global audience. Some of the trusted developers in the UK include Airbyte and Neurons Lab.

Germany

Although Germany's education level per country is 28%, compared to the OECD average of 33%, there are many German universities on TIME’s Higher Education 2023 list.

Some of these include the Technical University of Munich in no. 33, the University of Mannheim in no. 41, and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in no. 47. These show that Germany has some of the world’s most educated population and developers.

Gartner recognizes Germany as the second-largest developing market for software development in Europe. If you’re a software provider, you would love to tap into Europe's largest economy by hiring German developers.

According to Country Reports, Germany has a 99% literacy level, with over 900,000 professional software engineers. HubSpot ranks Berlin, its capital, as the number 1 tech city in Europe, and GitHub recorded over 400,000 new developers from the country.

This data expands Germany's sphere of influence globally and makes it a country every hiring manager must consider while hiring internationally.

Japan

According to OECD, Japan comes second in the global highest education level per country by 52.58%. The University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) are some of the world’s leading tech institutions located in the country.

Japan’s software development industry is the largest in its information and communication sector and is worth $33.83 billion. The numbers of developers in the country aren’t specific, as some say they are more than 1.22 million.

However, there are certainly 413,000 new entrants into the software development industry, according to GitHub, as seen below.

Japan is considered the global leader in applied intelligence, the expertise of most Japan-based developers.

Aside from AI, the country’s most in-demand skills include software development, data science, cyber security, cloud solutions, and full-stack development. So if you’re looking to hire talents in these sectors, Japan may be the best place to find developers with the skills and experience for your projects.

Brazil

While Brazil just has 23% in high education level per country based on OECD reports, its literacy rate peaked at 99.2%. There are 500,000 software developers in what's now the largest tech talent pool in the Latin American region. The country leads in the enterprise software market segment, and the software industry generated over $11 billion.

OECD tags the Brazilian market as having unleashed digital innovation for the past two decades. This means Brazil is your talent pool if you want to diversify into Latin America for both developer talent and business.

One of our trusted vendors, now headquartered in New York, CI&T, is one of these Brazilian-founded tech talents. There are many more like them for your company and its technical needs.

Poland

Poland is an emerging tech hub, and IBISWorld ranks its software development industry no. 7th in Europe. Although the number of educated persons up to the tertiary level is low, Poland has a growing tech base.

There are over 50,000 software development companies in Poland, according to the Polish Investment & Trade Agency. Local companies have hired over 430,000 specialists, and there are 89,000 more studying in universities.

Some companies we have tested and trusted include Atlas Apps, Angry Nerds, and Untitled Kingdom, which have executed over 100k euros worth of projects.

Israel

According to OECD, Israel's education level per country is 50.12%. It has over 321,000 IT specialists and software developers, and 8.7% of its workforce has high-tech jobs. Israel is still short of over 18,000 developers, which is why the country outsources some roles.

However, if you’re looking to hire talent from a country whose government invests heavily in technological infrastructure and encourages technology, Israel is one place to look. The population is low, but the advancement in software development makes it a haven for some of the best talent.

Mexico

Mexico is one of the leading countries in Latin America’s software development industry which had a revenue of $22.1 billion. While Mexico isn’t on the OECD list of the highest education level per country, it’s home to some of the best technical institutions in the world.

For example, the Tecnológico de Monterrey and Instituto Politécnico Nacional, are among the top institutions of all Latin American countries.

Mexico has over 700,000 developers, and the recent immigration of US citizens and digital nomads from other countries makes it one of the hotspots for hiring software developers.

Another attractive thing about Mexico is the success of many startups. According to Tracxn, there are 3,760 startups in the country, and Bloomberg Linea records that some of its unicorns include Bitso, Konfío, and Clara.

In 2021, there were over 350 new startups, and 106 of them were from the software development and data sectors, as seen in the image below.

Source

All these show that recruiting software developers from Mexico will be a remarkable asset to your business. Not only will you be tapping into one of the largest software development talent pools in Latin America, but you’ll also have a chance to expand your business into the region – if that’s the goal.

Romania

While there are higher numbers of developers located in France, Switzerland, or elsewhere: this Central-Eastern European country is on the list because Romanian developers are very well-educated. Some of their best schools are Transylvania University of Braşov and Babeș-Bolyai University.

There are over 139,000 developers in Romania (the largest in Central-Eastern Europe), and its software development industry is projected to be worth 9 billion euros by 2025.

Some trusted developers with over ten years of experience include Halcyon Mobile, Digitalya, Salt & Pepper, and StrongBytes. If you want to expand your business into this region, you can hire any software development company or expand your search by submitting a smart brief.

FAQs

Q1. Which are the world's best universities?

Some of the world's best universities from different countries are:

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• The University of Cambridge
• Stanford University
• University of Oxford
• ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
• Peking University, China
• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU)
• Tel Aviv University
• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
• University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Q2. Which are the world's highest-paid countries?

The average monthly net salaries vary depending on the country, company, and the population's skills. However, here's an estimate (displayed in USD) based on data:

• Switzerland – $6142.1
• Singapore – $4350.79
• Australia – $4218.89
• United States – $3721.64
• United Arab Emirates – $3663.27
• Norway – $3457.69
• Canada – $3338.62
• Denmark – $3294.72
• Iceland – $3237.11
• Netherlands – $3215.52

Q3. Which professions are best paid?

The highest-paid professions, according to INDEED data, includes:

• Chief technology officer with an average salary of $160,093 per year
• Data scientist with average salary of $140,232 per year
• Enterprise architect with an average salary of $137,970 per year
• Site reliability engineer with average salary of $133,379 per year
• Software engineering manager with average salary of $134,363 per year
• Software architect with average salary of $133,130 per year
• Mobile developer with average salary of $123,764 per year
• Software engineer with average salary of $127,169 per year
• Cloud engineer with average salary of $120,740 per year
• Technical program manager with an average salary of $119,219 per year
• Development operations engineer with an average salary of $117,739 per year
• Development operations engineer with an average salary of $117,739 per year
• Development operations engineer with an average salary of $117,739 per year
• IT security specialist with an average salary of $65,793 per year