After a period of rapid growth, with developer salaries driven up by a severe shortage in the tech and IT recruitment market, how will pay change now that fundraising is slowing?
This is the question our tech recruitment agency set out to answer through a market study, interviews with many tech candidates and a broader look at the overall economic situation.
For our study on other roles, see our article on startup salaries, which gives median salary ranges across all departments and roles at this type of company.
👉 To broaden the view to all IT roles, see our overview of IT salaries.
How the developer recruitment market is evolving
The slowdown in scale-up hiring
Clients, and candidates in interviews, often ask us about the slowdown in tech hiring. Compared with 2021, the drop in IT hiring volumes mainly affects job openings at scale-ups and among French unicorns.
Series A, Series B and Series C funding has shrunk sharply over the past two years, and the impact on developer teams at scale-ups has been drastic:
- An almost complete freeze on developer hiring (especially for junior roles)
- At some companies, redundancies affecting part of the technical team
Developers remain in short supply
The once very tight developer market has therefore eased somewhat. Even so, hiring a developer remains difficult:
- The variety of technologies, programming languages and frameworks widens the differences between developers’ skill sets
- The push to return to the office (hybrid working rather than fully remote) narrows companies’ options
IT services companies (ESNs) and large groups are still struggling to hire developers, which keeps the market tight for startups and scale-ups too.
Demand shifting towards more senior developers
That said, we are seeing a change in what client companies ask of the Licorne Society recruitment service. Fewer and fewer startups and scale-ups ask us to hire junior developers. There are two main reasons for this:
- Companies are increasingly looking to reduce the cost of their technical team, by hiring a small team of experienced developers rather than a large number of junior developers.
- Companies find it easier to recruit junior developers, as demand for new graduates has fallen.
Summary of developer salaries in France by stack
💡 Notes:
- Junior = generally less than 2 years of experience.
- Senior = around 5 years of experience.
- All salaries are expressed as gross annual figures.
Developer salaries in France
In our average salary study below, the term “developer” also covers other job titles such as Software Engineer, Software Developer or Web Developer.
Full stack developer salary in France
Full stack and web developer salaries by tech stack are as follows:
- Node.js / React.js full stack developer: €43k at junior level / €65k at senior level (5 years of experience)
- Node.js / Vue.js full stack developer: €43k at junior level / €65k at senior level (5 years of experience)
- PHP Symfony / React or Vue.js full stack developer: €40k at junior level / €60k at senior level (5 years of experience)
Further reading on web developer pay: DataScientest’s article on web developer salaries in 2024.
Backend developer salary in France
Backend developer salaries by tech stack and skills are as follows:
- PHP backend developer (Symfony, Laravel, etc.): €40k at junior level / €60k at senior level (5 years of experience)
- Java backend developer (Java J2E, Java Spring Boot, etc.): €42k at junior level / €65k at senior level (5 years of experience)
- Python backend developer: €45k at junior level / €70k at senior level
- Node.js backend developer: €43k at junior level / €65k at senior level (5 years of experience)
- Ruby on Rails backend developer: €45k at junior level / €70k at senior level (5 years of experience)
- Go backend developer: €45k at junior level / €70k at senior level (5 years of experience).
Hiring for an IT role? See our dedicated page: IT recruitment agency.
Frontend developer salary in France
Frontend developer salaries by tech stack are as follows:
- React.js frontend developer: €41k at junior level / €65k at senior level
- Vue.js frontend developer: €42k at junior level / €65k at senior level
- Angular.js frontend developer: €40k at junior level / €62k at senior level
Mobile developer salary in France
Mobile developer salaries by tech stack are as follows:
- Android developer: €45k on average at junior level / €70k at senior level
- iOS developer: €45k on average at junior level / €70k at senior level
- React Native developer: €43k on average at junior level / €65k at senior level
Salaries for Android and iOS app developers are among the highest in the market, as companies face a shortage of mobile app developers.
Lead Developer salary in France
Lead Developer salaries vary depending on the size of the team managed, the technical scope and the industry:
- Lead Developer at an early-stage startup (team of 2 to 4 developers): €65k with 5 years of experience / €80k with 8 years of experience
- Lead Developer at a scale-up (team of 5 to 10 developers): €75k with 5 years of experience / €90k with 8 years of experience
- Lead Developer at a large group or ESN: €60k with 5 years of experience / €80k with 8 years of experience
The overall range is therefore between €65k and €90k gross a year in Île-de-France (Paris region), with a median salary of around €75k for someone with about 6 to 7 years of experience.
Factors that influence developer salaries in France
Salary ranges by experience level
As a rule of thumb, developer salaries rise by €2,000 to €4,000 gross a year for each year of experience. Salaries therefore progress as follows:
- For a junior developer fresh out of school or training (no experience on a CDI, i.e. a permanent contract): between €35k and €45k on average
- For a mid-level developer (2-3 years of experience on a CDI): between €45k and €55k gross a year
- For a Senior developer (around 5 years of experience on a CDI): between €60k and €75k gross a year
- For a Lead Developer (managing a team of 3-4 developers): between €70k and €90k gross a year.
- For a Tech Lead (the team’s technical go-to person): salaries are fairly close to those of a Lead Dev.
The impact of technology and programming languages on pay
Technology has only a minor impact on pay. A few salary differences by technology and programming language are nonetheless worth noting:
- The best-paying languages are those used in iOS and Android mobile development, modern JavaScript web technologies and technologies that fewer candidates master, such as Go and Ruby
- The lowest-paying language is PHP
Differences between locations
Location has a significant impact on pay:
- The gap between developer salaries in Paris or Île-de-France and other major cities such as Lyon, Nantes or Bordeaux is around +8 to 10%
- The salary gap between developers in Paris or Île-de-France and fully remote developers anywhere in France is around +12 to +14%
Hiring remote developers can therefore help companies reduce their payroll costs.
The impact of education and degrees on junior developer salaries
Salary differences linked to the level of study (Bac+2, i.e. two years of higher education, Bac+3 with a bachelor’s degree, Bac+5 with a master’s) and to the degree obtained (computer science school, master’s, engineering degree) are most visible straight out of school, at the start of a career.
For new graduates, starting salaries vary as follows depending on the degree and training:
- Bac+2 or bachelor’s degree in computer science: €30k-34k gross a year (€2,500-2,830 per month)
- Master’s degree in computer science: €33k-37k gross a year (€2,750-3,080 per month)
- Specialised computer science school such as Epitech or Epita: €36k-42k gross a year (€3,000-3,500 per month)
- Engineering degree with a specialisation in computer science: €40k-45k gross a year (€3,300-3,750 per month)
- Degree from a top engineering grande école (Centrale, Polytechnique, etc.): €45k-55k gross a year (€3,750-4,500 per month)
Some training providers offer full stack developer courses for career changers. In this case, starting salaries on completion are less competitive and also depend on the candidate’s background before their career change.
Over a long developer career, degrees have less influence on gross pay.
The influence of industry on salary
The industry in which a developer works can have an impact on pay. The industries that pay developers best are:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Finance and FinTech
- MarTech
Industries that tend to pay developers less:
- FoodTech
- Impact-driven sectors, in particular the social and solidarity economy (ESS)
Further reading on tech roles
Our pages dedicated to tech roles
- For data roles, see our article on data salaries.
Looking for a job in IT? Find all developer job openings at startups on the Licorne Society platform. You will find openings at web, software, SaaS and mobile app companies, and more.
There are also other ways to start working together without a CDI, such as portage salarial (umbrella employment), which is as secure and advantageous as a CDI for the person hired. Worth a look: this tool to simulate your income under portage salarial.
