10 Programming Skills To Put On Your Resume In 2024

Are programming skills valuable for your career?

Should you put them on your resume? And if so, how?

There is a myriad of evidence to support that learning programming languages can be extremely beneficial to your career in the long run.

Why Learn Programming Skills?

For one, programming skills are high-income skills. This means that they enable you to earn significantly more than you would make with some other skill sets, leading to a lucrative career. And professionals with programming skills are in high demand, which means you can make more money with this skill due to demand.

For example, a recent Indeed report listed Rust, a general-purpose programming language, as one of the highest paying skills in tech. This skill alone can boost your salary by a staggering 39%.

Another reason programming skills are beneficial to your career, which has been alluded to here already, is that they are in high-demand.

This is because the tech industry is experiencing a serious skills gap, so it is imperative that professionals in this industry train themselves and broaden their technical expertise to understand multiple programming languages—the most popular ones as well as those that are not used as often.

The more you upskill yourself and learn new programming languages as a tech professional, the more you are able to make yourself available for freelance projects and jobs requiring very specific expertise.

Jobs That Require Programming Skills

Despite demand for computer programmers (specifically as an occupation) plummeting by 11% in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, programming skills are still a necessary foundation for other professions, including those that are strictly technical and those that are indirectly technical, such as:

• Data analysts
• Data scientists
• Software developers/engineers
• Mobile app developers
• UX/UI designers
• Cybersecurity analysts
• Academic researchers
• Product managers
• Technical writers

Top 10 Programming Languages/Skills To Include In Your Resume

In a June 2024 poll of more than 60,000 software developers globally, led by Statista, developers were asked, “Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?”

As a result of this survey, these top programming languages emerged as being the most popular and in-demand programming skills.

If you are entering the tech industry or are pursuing any of the roles listed above, this list will give you guidance on what to learn next—and what to add to your resume in 2024 (the percentages next to each programming skill represents the percentage of developers that currently use it or plan to use/learn it within the next 12 months):

1. JavaScript (62.3%)
2. HTML/CSS (52.9%)
3. Python (51%)
4. SQL (51%)
5. TypeScript (38.5%)
6. Bash/Shell (all shells) (33.9%)
7. Java (30.3%)
8. C# (27.1%)
9. C++ (23%)
10. C (20.3)

How To List Programming Skills On Your Resume

There are several factors you should bear in mind when listing programming skills on your resume:

1. Include your skills section near the top of your resume. Recruiters are becoming increasingly skills-focused when hiring, so placing it at a spot where they will see it first when glancing over your resume, is helpful for you and for them.
2. Ensure the skills you mention are relevant to the job description; highlight the ones that are listed in the job first, before proceeding to list others.
3. Categorize your technical skills into frameworks, operating systems, languages, etc. for ease of reading and scanning.
4. You can also include your proficiency level for each technical skill, including those that you only have a working knowledge of.
5. This should be obvious, but only list technical skills that you actually possess.

These skills will provide you with a significant advantage in the job market, for both technically-focused roles and non-technical positions, and enable you to have greater fluidity in your career, being able to make career pivots and work across multiple industries that demand your skill set.