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Why C# Developers Earn More
by Patrick Meader

July 2003 Issue

Patrick Meader Editor in Chief

Why do you think C# programmers outearn VB.NET programmers? Tell me at or discuss this in the Talk to the Editors of Visual Studio Magazine forum on our Web site. Use this Locator+ code: VS0307EN_D

Quite a few readers and more than a few Web sites questioned the results published in our most recent salary survey, "2003 Salary Survey: How Do Your Earnings Stack Up?" by Susannah Pfalzer [VSM June 2003]. They told us that C# developers can't really command significantly more money than VB.NET developers, when the languages are so similar.

But, of course they can.

It has long been the case that developers who use C and C-based languages command more money than those who use VB. I've seen many C users argue that this discrepancy results from the fact that C developers typically have more experience and/or more education than VB developers. This is true, but it's not the entire story. Several years of salary surveys indicate that C-based programmers earn more money than VB developers across the board, even when experience and education are similar.

A couple factors contribute to this. First, there are more VB programmers. A lot more, although Microsoft itself seems to be backpedaling in how many there are. Second, there is an inherent bias in many IT organizations against VB programmers. The bias is two-fold: First, the fact that there are so many VB programmers and the fact that many of them don't have the schooling you typically find associated with other languages tend to affect perceptions toward all VB programmers. Also—and this isn't news—VB developers have long toiled under the misperception that they use a toy language, regardless of the uses they put it to. Together, I think these facts depress salaries for VB programmers, regardless of schooling and education. It's hard to overcome someone else's prejudice. I think VS.NET changed some perceptions, but I'm not surprised to see this bias still represented in salary figures for C# and VB.NET developers.

Several readers also questioned the uptick in salaries indicated by the salary survey when the general market for programmers is significantly down. They weren't alone. The result defied common sense and prompted the editors to review both the results and methodology of the survey. But further review confirmed that the numbers were recorded correctly, and the methodology wasn't significantly different from what we've used in the past, which have generated reasonably consistent results over time. So, how can salaries be going up when all of us know people who have been out of work for some time and the prospects for finding new employment are fewer than in the past?

I have a theory about this. In the past year, there have been many layoffs in the programming sector. And, fair or not, the people who are let go first at many companies are often the people with the least tenure. This has the odd effect of actually raising the average salary because the people who are left tend to earn more. If you let enough lower-salaried people go, you can actually raise the average salary at a company significantly. The higher salaries aren't necessarily a sign of growth, and I didn't view the increase in average salary as a positive development.

We at VSM appreciate your feedback, and will continue to provide information on the salaries that developers earn. We think such articles are of compelling interest to all developers, especially in a down market, although we certainly wish the news were better for the industry as a whole.