What this occupation does
Software developers research, design, and develop computer and network software or specialised utility programs. The role covers requirements analysis, system design, implementation, code review, debugging, and ongoing maintenance across application and infrastructure layers.
The exposure score in context
The ILO 2025 refined Generative AI Occupational Exposure Index places software developers in the moderate exposure gradient. ILO 2025 places software developers in the moderate exposure gradient. Code generation is highly exposed at task level, but architecture, debugging in production, and stakeholder coordination remain human-led activities.
The mapping uses ISCO-08 code 2512 (BLS-published SOC-to-ISCO crosswalk). The full methodology, including the dominant-match rule for one-to-many crosswalks, is at /methodology/#algorithm.
The top five tasks, classified
The top five O*NET 30.2 tasks for this occupation, each tagged Displaceable / Changing / Growing per the Brookings 2024 task-level rubric. The tag definitions are at /glossary/#displaceable-task, /glossary/#changing-task, and /glossary/#growing-task.
- Changing: Modify existing software to correct errors, allow it to adapt to new hardware, or to improve its performance. AI coding assistants accelerate this task but contextual debugging in unfamiliar production code remains human-led.
- Changing: Develop and direct software system testing and validation procedures, programming, and documentation. Documentation and unit-test scaffolding are AI-augmented; validation procedures involve judgement that remains human.
- Growing: Consult with customers about software system design and maintenance. Customer consultation is augmentation-prone per Brookings 2024 and grows as AI tooling expands the range of feasible work.
- Growing: Analyse user needs and software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints. Requirements analysis grows in importance as AI generates more candidate solutions to triage.
- Growing: Confer with systems analysts, engineers, programmers and others to design systems. Cross-functional system design is high-judgement and grows with the cost of integration errors.
What is growing in this role
The BLS Employment Projections 2024-2034 outlook for software developers is much faster than average (+15.8% projected change, +267.7k jobs). Source: BLS Employment Projections 2024-2034.
Per the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, the top three growing skills relevant to this role are: AI and big data, Networks and cybersecurity, Technological literacy. The skills are mapped to the occupation's O*NET skills profile.
Brookings 2024 finds software development tasks among the most augmentation-prone categories: code production is exposed, system design and human-context engineering grow.
Software Developers in the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025
Software and application developers are among the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 fastest-growing roles to 2030, driven by continued demand for digital products and AI-enabled systems even as routine coding tasks are automated. Source: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 (January 2025). The WEF lists are occupation-family level and global, ranked by change to 2030; they are distinct from the BLS 2024-2034 US projection above. The full named growing and declining lists are on what is growing.
Similar occupations
O*NET 30.2 lists the following related roles. Each links to its own deep dive where one is published.
- Data Scientists
- Financial Analysts
- Project Management Specialists
- Computer and Information Research Scientists
- Computer and Information Systems Managers
Industry context
This role sits primarily in the Technology industry. The industry-level rollup includes the cross-occupation exposure profile and the BLS-published industry-level outlook.
How this assessment was made
The full methodology is at /methodology/: ILO 2025 refined index for the gradient, Brookings 2024 rubric for the task tags, BLS 2024-2034 for the growth outlook, WEF 2025 for the skills demand. The pre-empted critiques are at /how-to-argue-with-this/.