Top 10 Software Development Skills for 2025
This is my list of the top 10 software development skills for 2025. The list is based mostly on my own experience. Both skills that I see and work with on a daily basis, as well as trends I see emerging in the industry. Being a software developer requires a lifelong learning mindset. (side note: I’m planning a follow up post on what I think are the best qualities of a software developer.) These are the skills that I think will be important in 2025 and going forward.
It might surprise you that I see this generic category as the #1 skill for 2025. (And it might not.) You may have expected to see Machine Learning or Cloud skills in the top spot. Don’t worry, those appear later in this list. However, I still think programming language skills are the best skills a software developer can have, learn and/or improve going into 2025.
Before I talk more about programming skills, let’s address AI related skills not being in the #1 spot. There are a few people out there asking if AI will replace software developers. I don’t really see this happening. However, I do think AI will definitely change how software developers work. How much so remains to be seen, unless you can see the future. I don’t think anyone really knows what software development will look like in 10 to 20 years. I will, hopefully, be retired by then. Although, I’ll likely still be dabbling in code in one way or another for the rest of my life, as it’s always been a hobby of mine. So, it will be fascinating to see how AI influences the profession.
Now that we’ve gotten the impact of AI out of the way, let’s get back to programming language skills. If we’re looking at decades before things really change for software developers significantly enough that things will look different, than that means that programming languages skills are still very much relevant going into 2025. If you’re just getting into software development, you might want to look into the most popular languages and pick one of those. Actually, pick 2, SQL and one other language of your choice. (More on why you should learn SQL later.) What language you pick depends somewhat on your career goals. Python is a great choice if your interested in data science and AI, C# or Java might be good choices if your interested in cloud applications. However, don’t let specific applications of a particular language get in your way. A very large amount of programming skills are transferrable from language to language, so just pick one that you find interesting and learn it. You can always switch to a different one if you don’t like the one you picked first. Furthermore, for the most part, you can actually do almost anything with any language. (Whether you should or not is probably worth an entire blog post.) Even if you’re an experienced developer, you would likely still benefit from learning a new language, as this can open up insights and ways of doing things that you may not have thought of before.
Here are a couple of my favorite resources for understanding what programming languages are in high demand:
The Tiobe Index
As of the writing of this blog post, Python was the #1 language. I like to make sure that I’ve got skills in at least 2 or 3 of the languages in the top 10 spots. Right now, I’m actively working with 4 out of the top 10: C#, Visual Basic (.NET), SQL and JavaScript. Knowing these languages are in the Tiobe top 10 gives me an indication that continuing to work with them, and striving for advanced knowledge in these areas, will remain beneficial for my career. It’s also interesting to note that Python is in the #1 spot. I’m definitely interested in learning Python, even though I won’t be actively using it in my daily work. I may start that journey in 2025, if time allows.
The Stack Overflow Developer Survey
The link is to the 2024 survey results. You’ll want to scroll to the “Programming, scripting, and markup languages” section and click on that. This will give you an idea of what software developers said were the languages they most want to work with as well as the languages that are most admired by developers. I like to cross reference this with the Tiobe index and, again, make sure that I’ve got skills in at least 2 or 3 of the languages in the top 10 spots. We can see JavaScript, SQL, C# are in the top 10 at 2, 3 and 9, respectively. And, or course, Python tops the Stack Overflow survey results as well.
So, as far as the best skills to learn for 2025, general programming skills are still #1, in my opinion.
!!! One last thing in regards to the rankings before we move on to the rest of the list. I have Cybersecurity skills at #9 on my list. I explain why it ranks in that spot later. However, please do not think that security isn’t a critical aspect of software development. As you continue to improve your programming language skills, I strongly encourage you to consider security to be integral to software development, and not just an afterthought. !!!
Coming in at #2 is cloud development skills. I’m even going to go so far as to say AWS and Azure, specifically. There are a number of cloud platform offerings available, but AWS and Azure, are the top 2 most used cloud platforms at the moment. You can see a breakdown of market share here . If you want to learn one of the other options besides AWS or Azure, I’m sure it would be worthwhile. However, based on market share, it looks like there will be more opportunities for developers with skills in AWS and Azure.
What’s interesting about the cloud and building on cloud platforms is that the same principles of software architecture that apply in on-premises data centers still apply in the cloud. Which I think further solidifies programming skills being in the top spot on this list. Besides the implementation of the services offered by specific cloud providers, there’s nothing really that different about developing on the cloud from an architectural stand point. Probably one of the biggest challenges working on a cloud platform vs. on-premises is cost control. In the cloud, you trade capital expense for variable expense. What this means is that, instead of spending thousands of dollars on hardware and licensing, like you would to build an on-premises data center, you instead trade the up-front capital expense for a “pay as you go” approach. Running applications in the cloud requires careful consideration of how much capacity you will need to run your applications and careful monitoring of resource utilization while your applications are running.
I’ve been studying to take the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam for some time now. It’s been a long road and there is a lot to learn. I still don’t feel like I’m ready yet, but I’m hoping to obtain this certification in the next year or two.
For #3, we have SQL and RDBMS. I know, SQL is a programming language and I already mentioned it under #1. However, I think it’s still important to call it out here, along with RDBMS, which I’ll be referring to as relational databases for the rest of this post. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that every software developer should know some SQL. I don’t know if I’ve ever been employed as a software developer and didn’t have to use SQL in some capacity. The second reason is that SQL itself can be a career specialty for people who enjoy more of the data side of development. Several companies have dedicated SQL developers who work exclusively with data, and writing code exclusively in SQL.
Relational databases are included in the #3 spot along with SQL, because SQL and relational database are almost always associated with each other. Additionally, while there may be several alternatives to relational databases available today, serving highly specialized purposes, relational database are still the most efficient and effective way to store and organize most data. Because of this, relational databases will not be going away. Not any time soon, at least.
If you are new to software development, and aren’t in some sort of highly specialized field, such as embedded software development, learning how relational databases work and how to use them will likely be unavoidable. If you are an experienced developer, improving your relational database skills can still be a highly beneficial career move. Knowing how to query an even moderately large dataset efficiently can often mean the difference between processes that run for several minutes, or even hours in some cases, vs. processes that run for a few seconds.
At #4, we have APIs . There are many ways APIs can be implemented, a subject that is beyond the scope of this blog post. However, web-based APIs have become the defacto standard for communication between applications and systems. If you aren’t already aware, almost every application that you use on a computer today, from social media on your browser to office applications on your desktop, uses an API in some way or another.
On the modern internet, the most common types APIs are probably REST APIs. REST stands for “Representational State Transfer” and is an architectural style of building APIs. REST APIs commonly use the HTTP protocol. This is the same protocol that modern web browsers are based on and allow the APIs to use the same infrastructure that already powers the web.
Some other types of APIs you may encounter as a developer are SOAP, an older style API that has gradually decreased in popularity, but is still widely used, GraphQL , a specialized type of API for using queries to retrieve data.
AI/Machine Learning gets the #5 spot on my list. You may see this ranked much higher on other lists, and for valid reasons. However, AI and Machine Learning get ranked in the #5 spot on my list. That is because, while these skills may be extremely popular right now, they are highly specialized skills that most software developers are probably not going to need to know. Maybe time will prove me wrong on this one. However, due to their popularity, I still think these skills definitely deserve a spot in the top 10. AI powered tools have definitely been creeping further and further into my day to day tasks. Thing like GitHub CoPilot, ChatGPT, etc., are definitely not going away, and I have used them effectively for obtaining help with solving challenging problems. So, AI is around and you will likely end up needing to use AI powered tools at some point. This tells me that AI and ML skills are definitely useful skills for one to add to their skill set, but whether you will develop software powered by AI really depends on your career goals and interests, which is why these technologies landed in the middle of my lists.
#6 goes to React/Typescript. Ok, so, putting this list together list was not easy. This is certainly a crossover with #1 and possibly could have been put into that category. However, React isn’t a programming language, but a front-end JavaScript library for modern web UI development. Over time, I’m seeing React pulling ahead of other frameworks in popularity . Frameworks like Angular, Vue.js, jQuery, etc. Any widely used front-end framework would be a great skill to add to one’s skill set, but React seems to be dominating more and more as time goes on. This will likely change at some point, when something better comes along, but React shows no signs of losing the #1 spot in 2025.
TypeScript is a programming language and is a superset of Javascript, meaning any valid JavaScript is valid TypeScript, but not vice-versa. TypeScript adds strong typing to front-end JavaScript development. While not strictly required for using React, you will likely be working with TypeScript if you are working on projects that use React.
On a side note, for those just starting out: If you’re learning a programming language, you’ll at some point likely encounter a corresponding library or framework. React is a very popular JavaScript library. ASP.NET Core is a popular web framework for .NET based applications, Django is a popular framework for Python. So, whatever language you pick, it’s a good idea to start looking at popular libraries and/or frameworks written for that language once you’ve mastered the basics of your target language.
Coming in at #7 is DevOps. If you don’t know what DevOps is, you’re not alone. All jokes aside though, DevOps is the idea that development and operations teams should not be siloed. In practice, it doesn’t often work out that way. How DevOps is actually implemented varies from one organization to another. Many organizations have evolved to have specialized DevOps teams, reintroducing siloed teams back into the organizational structure. However, even in this model, there is still a difference between traditional siloed development and operations teams. You will encounter a lot of overlap and find that different companies have different ways of doing things. That being the case, it’s good for a developer to pick up some DevOps knowledge at some point. It’s very possible your development could be tasked with building your own DevOps implementation or you could be working very closely with specialized DevOps Engineers, who need to know how your applications function and how they are deployed to the various environments, typically, dev, test, staging and production.
Based on my own interpretation and understanding, learning DevOps includes things like using CI/CD servers, such as Azure DevOps, AWS CI/CD tools, Jenkins, TeamCity, etc., understanding infrastructure as code, understanding technologies like containers, and using them to automate the deployment of your organization’s application.
Modern DevOps seems to be evolving into a role that requires both software development and infrastructure skills, with some crossover into systems administration as well.
As the Internet of Things continues to grow, embedded systems development will grow with it. The choices here are pretty much C and C++. This type of development requires a deeper knowledge of low-level concepts, such as memory management and CPU architectures. However, working in embedded systems can lead to some interesting career paths. This type of development may be better suited to people who lean towards the mechanical and/or industrial fields, as embedded systems development typically involves writing specialized code for microcontrollers that power specific pieces of physical hardware. Think computers cars, tractors, drones, robots, etc. This type of a development is a great complement to a career in engineering, and many embedded systems jobs require a degree in computer science, computer engineering or electrical engineering .
At #9 is Cybersecurity. I really debated putting this higher on the list. If this list was top 10 technology skills for 2025, I’d strongly consider putting Cybersecurity at #1. However, this is a list of the top 10 software development skills for 2025. And while cybersecurity is an incredibly important aspect of software development, it also stands on it’s own as it’s own skill set. Unless you want to eventually transition onto a cybersecurity team, it’s not really a software development career path. So, it kind of depends on how you look at it really.
That being said, I need to reiterate what I said earlier ans ask that you please don’t underestimate how important cybersecurity is for software development. Every developer should always be writing code with a security first mindset. I’m lucky enough to work for an organization that has it’s own cybersecurity team. They conduct routine penetration testing of our systems and applications, and even though I communicate it to them when I can, they will likely never know how grateful I am that I work for an organization that has a dedicated cybersecurity team.
From a Cybersecurity perspective, one of the best things you can do as a software developer is to become familiar with the OWASP Top 10 list of web application security risks. If you don’t work in web development, don’t think this list doesn’t apply to you. Most of the vulnerabilities on the list also apply to non web-based software.
Finally, at #10, is operating system skills. In order to write software, you’re going to need to know the basics of how the underlying operating system works. Where do find the event logs on a Windows system? Where do find the event logs on a Linux system? How are permissions granted? How do those permissions affect your applications? How do you install third party libraries on the target operating system your software runs on? Who is responsible for patching the systems? What kind of file system does your OS use? These are a just a few examples. All of these things are good to know as a software developer and will make your life a lot easier when debugging issues in your software. Take some time to learn about the underlying OS your application will be targeting.
You may think cloud computing has eliminated the need for OS skills. However, a common implementation of cloud infrastructure is to use an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model. For example, on AWS you may be deploying applications to an EC2 instance with a Windows or Linux operating system installed. On Windows Azure you would achieve the same type of solution using an Azure Virtual Machine. In these cases, even though you’re using the cloud, you’re still working on the server as if it were a server installed in your own data center.
Well, there is my list for 2025. Again, this is based solely on my own experience as a software developer and the trends I am encountering in my daily work. I hope you found this list helpful.
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