In September 2024, TokyoDev conducted our sixth annual survey of international developers living in Japan. This year’s survey had a total of 814 respondents, up 14% from last year’s survey. The results are now live, so please check out the full results, or read on for some of the key findings.
Minimal changes to the job market
The median compensation of respondents was ¥8.5 million per year, the same as last year’s survey. This is down from ¥9.5 million in 2022.
The current market for international developers appears similar to 2023 in other ways as well. For instance, 17% of respondents were actively searching for a job, compared to 19% in 2023, and 2% of respondents were unemployed, the same as the previous year.
Highest pay for English-speaking roles in international companies
As in previous years, we observed that those working at internationally-headquartered companies made significantly more than those at Japanese-headquartered companies. Employees of international companies made a median of 47% more than employees of Japanese companies. This gap was larger in 2023, when employees of international companies made 73% more.
English usage also correlated with higher compensation, with those frequently or always using English at their job making 73% more than those who rarely or never use English. Likewise, respondents with higher English proficiency also made more.
However, Japanese ability had little correlation with compensation, and Japanese usage had a negative correlation with compensation. This appears to run counter to what others have told us: to advance your career in Japan, you need Japanese. Properly exploring this is beyond the scope of this article, but one factor is that many of our respondents worked in an environment where Japanese abilities weren’t needed, with only 32% of respondents frequently or always using Japanese.
Less remote, more challenges
Companies are switching from allowing employees to work completely remotely, to a hybrid model requiring them to come into the office at least some of the time. While in 2023 43% of respondents could choose whether or not to come to the office, that number fell to 38% this year, with those subject to a hybrid policy increasing by a corresponding amount.
The less an organization embraced remote work, the more likely a respondent was to be actively looking for a job. While only 10% of respondents who could choose whether or not to work remotely were on the job hunt, a whopping 39% of those who had to work full-time at an office were. Hybrid workers fell in the middle, with 18% of respondents looking for a new job.
Additionally, those who had to attend an office were more negative about their workplace than those who could work fully remotely, on every aspect we surveyed except job security.
Overall, remote work was respondents’ most important benefit, with 49% of survey-takers valuing it over anything else. It seems companies that continue to embrace a fully-remote environment will have an advantage when it comes to recruiting.
Even with experience considered, women still earn less than men
The median compensation of male respondents was 46% higher than that of female respondents.
This was partially explained by male respondents having more professional experience. While men had a median of 7 years of professional experience, women had 6 years. Furthermore, men had a 75th percentile of 13 years of experience compared to 9 for women.
However, even when comparing cohorts with similar levels of professional experience, male respondents continued to make more, and the disparity in pay actually grew with seniority. While men with 4–6 years of experience made 7% more than women, men with 7–9 years of experience made 31% more.
The reasons behind this disparity are complex, but it’s clear that women continue to face challenges in the Japanese tech industry. For ideas on how your company can take concrete action to solve this, please see this article.
Professional happiness prevails among international developers
62% of respondents were happy or very happy with their professional lives in Japan. Stack Overflow’s 2024 survey asked a similar question, and found only 20% of respondents were satisfied with their current professional developer role.
While Japan internationally has a reputation for poor work-life balance, that didn’t seem to be the case for most of our respondents. 70% reported enjoying a good work-life balance, 72% worked at most 40 hours in a typical week, and 55% planned to use 80-100% of their paid leave.
It’s important to note that our respondents don’t represent the overall Japanese developer market. Their relatively high compensation suggests they may work at companies offering particularly favorable environments, which could explain their high professional satisfaction.
Plus so much more
Not only are there many more insights to be found in the full survey results, we also offer the ability to create your own custom charts, allowing you to explore the data further. So please, dive in and take a look, and if you find any other interesting connections, please share them with our community!
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