Side-by-side distribution
Java
$127,674
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 20.1%
- Live roles
- 1,401
Python
$162,050
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 15.9%
- Live roles
- 1,066
Highest-paying jobs
Java of Senior Software Engineer, AI Training
Senior Java Data Platform Engineer - Clearance Required
Senior Software Engineer, Java
Senior Software Engineer, Java
ETL Java Developer (SME)
Java Developer (SME)
Upcoming Opportunity – Principal Engineer – Java/AWS
Senior Software Engineer, Treasury and Reference Data (Java/Ruby/Python)
Distinguished Engineer - Java / AWS - Zelle
Software Engineer 2 (Hybrid) - AWS/Hadoop/Accumulo/Terraform/Python/Java
Highest-paying jobs
Python Senior Software Engineer, AI Training
Software Engineer (C++ or Python) – 2027 Grads
GenAI Python Systems Engineer –Senior Manager
Senior Software Engineer (Networking, Python, C/C++)
Senior Software Engineer, Treasury and Reference Data (Java/Ruby/Python)
Software Engineer 2 (Hybrid) - AWS/Hadoop/Accumulo/Terraform/Python/Java
Software Integration Engineer 2 (On-Call) - Linux/Bash/Python/Docker/Kubernetes/IaC/Helm/Prometheus/Grafana
Software Engineer 3 - Linux/Bash/Python/Apache Airflow/SQL/Jupyter Notebook/NumPy/JSON
Senior DevOps Engineer - AWS/Java/Linux/Ansible/Git/Python
Software Engineer 2 (Hybrid) - AWS/Hadoop/Accumulo/Terraform/Python/Java
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Elastic
|
$104,155 | 30 |
|
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 27 |
|
Leidos
|
$151,475 | 12 |
Referral Board
|
$117,865 | 11 |
Bank of America
|
$141,400 | 10 |
GDIT
|
$185,000 | 9 |
State Street
|
$119,750 | 8 |
Accenture
|
$101,920 | 7 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Captivation Software
|
$200,000 | 33 |
Northbeam
|
$185,000 | 12 |
Travelers
|
$144,750 | 8 |
|
Bank of America
|
$141,400 | 7 |
| PA PayPal | $199,600 | 5 |
|
Leidos
|
$151,475 | 5 |
Anduril Industries
|
$222,000 | 4 |
OpenDataJobs
|
$123,750 | 4 |
Python salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | $202,000 | 5 |
| San Francisco | $200,000 | 3 |
| Boston | $200,000 | 3 |
| Atlanta | $184,700 | 3 |
| Chicago | $165,000 | 11 |
| New York | $163,000 | 15 |
| Los Angeles | $150,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $94,897 | 7 |
Java vs Python: which pays more?
The median for Java is $127,674 per year (typically $103,110–$173,425), versus $162,050 for Python ($127,143–$200,000). That puts Python about 27% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Java and Python 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.