What Do 29,000 Developers Reveal About Language Trends and Remote Work in 2022?

JetBrains released its annual Developer Ecosystem Survey, gathering feedback from about 29,000 developers worldwide.

Key findings include a growing interest in Rust and Go, 73% of respondents reporting feeling burnt out at work, and 50% working remotely—up from 30% a year earlier. The most commonly used collaboration tools are video calls and screen sharing rather than IDE‑integrated features.

The survey’s demographic is roughly 91% male.

Although JetBrains notes potential bias because its own users may be more likely to respond, the high numbers for JetBrains tools are evident, even as Visual Studio Code maintains strong influence.

Platform usage shows both backend and frontend projects, with desktop languages (32%) leading over mobile languages (28%).

The language trend chart (2017‑2022) highlights that JavaScript remains the most important language (65% of developers), followed by Python (53%). If HTML/CSS is counted as a language, it ranks second (54%). PHP has dropped from 32% to 20% since the last survey. TypeScript rose from 29% to 37%.

When asked which languages they would like to learn, developers showed strong interest in Go (12%), Rust (11%), and Kotlin (8%). Preferred languages among current users are Kotlin (44%), C# (39%), and Python (38%). The least liked languages are Perl (96% dislike), Visual Basic (77%), Delphi (60%), and C (51%).

Remote development is on the rise: 53% sometimes edit code on remote machines, with four‑fifths using SSH and 45% using remote desktop. While interest in cloud development environments like GitHub CodeSpaces or Gitpod is high, only a quarter have adopted them; 74% still prefer their own remote computers or servers.

Half of the surveyed developers work collaboratively remotely, while only 28% work face‑to‑face. Collaboration tools are primarily simple video calls with screen sharing (49%); only one‑fifth use IDE‑based smart collaboration features.

Developer mental health is a concern: about 44% are very interested in applying technology to maintain it, yet 73% have experienced workplace burnout, with developers being the most affected group (83%).

One in two developers plans to adopt a new programming language, with top choices being Go, Rust, Kotlin, TypeScript, and Python.

Artificial intelligence/machine learning is seen as the most promising technology, and Rust as the most promising language.

Python is the second most popular language, overtaking Java as the primary language for respondents and narrowing the gap with JavaScript.

The most popular development operating systems are Windows, macOS, and Linux.