Software engineering demographics
Software engineers make up a significant portion of the global workforce. As of 2022, there are an estimated 26.9 million professional software engineers worldwide, up from 21 million in 2016.
By country
United States
In 2023, there were an estimated 1.6 million professional software developers in North America. There are 166 million people employed in the US workforce, making software developers 0.96% of the total workforce.Summary
| Role | # | SE title | # | TE title | Ratio of SE to TE |
| Practitioners | 611,900 | Software engineers | 1,157,020 | Traditional engineers | 53% |
| Managers | 264,790 | Computer and information systems managers | 413,750 | Engineering managers + construction managers | 64% |
| Educators | 16,495 | Computer science | 29,310 | Engineering teachers | 56% |
| Technicians | 457,320 | Computer programmers | 516,170 | Engineering technicians | 88% |
Software engineers vs. traditional engineers
The following two tables compare the number of software engineers versus the number of traditional engineers.There are another 1,500,000 people in system analysis, system administration, and computer support, many of whom might be called software engineers. Many systems analysts manage software development teams, and as analysis is an important software engineering role, many of them may be considered software engineers in the near future. This means that the number of software engineers may actually be much higher.
It is important to note that the number of software engineers declined by 5 to 10 percent from 2000 to 2002.
Computer managers vs. construction and engineering managers
Computer and information system managers manage software projects, as well as computer operations. Similarly, Construction and engineering managers oversee engineering projects, manufacturing plants, and construction sites. Computer management is 64% the size of construction and engineering management.Software engineering educators vs. engineering educators
Most people working in the field of computer science, whether making software systems or studying the theoretical and mathematical facts of software systems, acquire degrees in computer science. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were approximately 44,800 postsecondary computer science teachers and 50,300 engineering teachers, indicating that the computer science educator workforce is nearly 89% as large as that of engineering educators. The combined number of postsecondary chemistry and physics teachers totaled 42,500, slightly less than the number of computer science educators.Relation to IT demographics
Software engineers are part of the much larger software, hardware, application, and operations community. In 2000 in the U.S., there were about 680,000 software engineers and about 10,000,000 IT workers. As of early 2025, there are an estimated 47.2 million software developers worldwide, representing a 50% increase from 31 million in Q1 2022.There are no numbers on testers in the BLS data.