Side-by-side distribution
Java
$132,750
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 15%
- Live roles
- 788
JavaScript
$175,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 21.3%
- Live roles
- 202
Highest-paying jobs
Lead Java Developer
Senior Java Engineer
Senior Backend Engineer (Java)
Senior Backend Engineer (Java)
Senior Software Engineer, Java
Senior Software Engineer, Java
Software Engineer 2 - AWS/Hadoop/Accumulo/Terraform/Python/Java
Software Engineer 3- Python/Kotlin/Java/Terraform/ElasticSearch/OpenSearch/AWS
Software Engineer 2 (Hybrid) - Java/MapReduce/Accumulo/Hadoop
Software Engineer 2 - Java/MapReduce/Cloud/GhostMachine/QTA
Highest-paying jobs
Polyglot Engineer (JS/Python/Go)
Polyglot Engineer (JS/Python/Go)
Senior Software Engineer (Node), JavaScript SDK
Senior Software Engineer (Frameworks), JavaScript SDK
Software Engineer 2 (Hybrid) - JavaScript/React/Angular/Java/Linux
Software Engineer 3 -AWS/Docker/Kubernetes/Java/JavaScript/MongoDB/Elasticsearch
Software Engineer 2 - Grafana/Bash/Python/JavaScript
Full-Stack Developer - Python/JavaScript/CSS/REST/Docker
Software Engineer - Python/FASApi/JavaScript/JSON/CSS/MongoDB/Docker
Automated Test Engineer (Hybrid) - Cypress/JavaScript/Agile/Git/Jira/AWS/CI/CD
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 24 |
Elastic
|
$118,060 | 18 |
Referral Board
|
$118,411 | 10 |
Accenture Federal Services
|
$138,100 | 4 |
Bloomreach
|
$56,441 | 4 |
|
Moniepoint
|
$520,000 | 3 |
SentinelOne
|
$180,550 | 3 |
| CA Capco | $95,057 | 3 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Air Apps
|
$61,110 | 10 |
|
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 6 |
Mindrift
|
$124,800 | 5 |
|
Sentry
|
$206,644 | 4 |
| YL YLD | $773,411 | 2 |
Virtu Financial
|
$175,000 | 2 |
Oscilar
|
$157,563 | 2 |
LangChain
|
$200,000 | 1 |
Java salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago | $200,000 | 7 |
| New York | $187,500 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $122,500 | 3 |
| Toronto | $101,279 | 4 |
JavaScript salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $235,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $178,288 | 3 |
| New York | $175,000 | 3 |
| London | $92,774 | 4 |
Java vs JavaScript: which pays more?
The median for Java is $132,750 per year (typically $99,443–$200,000), versus $175,000 for JavaScript ($99,894–$200,000). That puts JavaScript about 32% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Java and JavaScript are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.