software development jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-05-17, software development appears in 2,015 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — most often required for Software Engineer roles, with demand down 38% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-05-17
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Frequently asked questions about software development
+Is software development in demand in 2026?
Yes. software development appears in 2,015 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, with demand down 38% vs the prior 4 weeks. It is most often required for Software Engineer roles (25% of Software Engineer postings list it).
+What jobs require software development?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17, the job titles most likely to require software development are Software Engineer (25% of postings list software development), Engineering Manager (8% of postings list software development), Data Engineer (4% of postings list software development).
+What skills are commonly paired with software development?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-05-17), software development most often appears alongside Python, testing, Java, machine learning, Distributed systems.
+Where is software development most in demand?
As of 2026-05-17, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring software development are New York City, San Francisco, London, Bengaluru, Austin, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new software development content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning software development alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new software development content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring software development — last 90 days
Job titles most likely to require software development
| Role | Postings mentioning | % requiring |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer | 503 | 25.0% |
| Engineering Manager | 164 | 8.1% |
| Data Engineer | 83 | 4.1% |
| Technical Program Manager | 78 | 3.9% |
| Product Manager | 59 | 2.9% |
| Software Developer | 33 | 1.6% |
| Software Engineering Manager | 30 | 1.5% |
| Staff Software Engineer | 27 | 1.3% |
| Program Manager | 22 | 1.1% |
| Backend Engineer | 20 | 1.0% |
Top metros hiring for software development
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | 105 | 25.4% |
| San Francisco | 88 | 21.3% |
| London | 61 | 14.7% |
| Bengaluru | 50 | 12.1% |
| Austin | 25 | 6.0% |
| Berlin | 23 | 5.6% |
| Sunnyvale | 23 | 5.6% |
| Mountain View | 20 | 4.8% |
| Costa Mesa | 19 | 4.6% |
Skills commonly paired with software development
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How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-05-17. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 646d498faed253f1
- data_as_of
- 2026-05-17
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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