Programmers and software

development professionals

Professional occupations, SOC 2020 code 2134. Back to the map

Programmers and software development professionals design, develop, test, implement and maintain software systems on a range of platforms in order to meet the specifications and business objectives of the information system; they also design and develop specialist software e.g. for computer games.

Employees (UK): 360k
Median annual pay: £55,587
Exposure score ?: -
Wage exposure: - -

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What a model can do unaided. A model plus workflow tools, closer to how work runs in 2026.

Two clerks at the US Census Bureau punching population cards on a pantograph and a keypunch, with filing boxes behind them

Where the work usually starts.

Every role has three or four places like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days.

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Every task in the role.

Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can do unaided and what still needs a person. Importance is O*NET's 1 to 5 rating of how central each task is.

No task-level data is mapped for this occupation. Browse the treemap to find adjacent roles with task detail.

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This role's score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 task labels, weighted by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 through ISCO-08 (the ONS coding index) and US SOC 2010 (the BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional, which covers employees only.

Back to the map Methodology Sources (PDF)Built 29 April 2026

Pictures

"Census pantograph and 1930s keypunches" by U.S. Census Bureau employees, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
"Shepard Barclay, St. Louis lawyer, in his office" by Missouri Historical Society via DPLA, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
"Accountant's Office LCCN2016824374" by National Photo Company Collection, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
"Employment service in Oulu in the spring 1931" by Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Where the work usually starts.

Every task in the role.

Stay on top of this.

Related occupations.

What it means for your sector.

An email when there’s something worth reading.