In this blog let’s take a look at what web development is all about and also look at some benefits and drawbacks of web development to understand whether it is a good career and whether it also has a good demand or not in detail.
So if you are confused regarding whether you should choose web development as a career then you don’t need to worry about it anymore and
I would recommend you to read this article till the end to understand everything about web development before you can decide whether you should choose web development for your career or not.
Table of Contents
What is web development?
Web development refers to the creating, and maintaining of websites. It includes web design, programming, and database management.
It is basically creation of websites which can be easily accessible by users and internet using their browsers on their devices like Chrome or Safari, there are 2 types of web development, front end and back end and there is full stack development which manages both front end and back end.
Now let’s take a look at some benefits and drawbacks of web development as a career option to decide whether it is a good career or not.
Pros and cons of web development
Pros of web development
High demand and high paying
One of the main advantages of web development as a career is that it is high demand and also a high paying career option.
The primary reason for high demand of the web developers is that there are more than 4 billion people who use the internet and there are more than two billion websites and 400 million active website and approximately 576,000 websites are created every day.
Especially after covid-19 pandemic people have realised the importance of moving their business online and almost every business, education and
government institution, any private and public organisation, banks and others are creating a website for their organisation and having an online presence.
And as a web developer your main job is to create beautiful looking websites depending upon your customers interests and
the fact is that majority of the business owners do not create a website despite knowing the importance of it because they have no knowledge about how they can do it, It is as simple as that.
And even if we assume business owners know how to create a website then it is not just about creating a website,
it is about creating an attractive website and there is a lot of difference between creating a website and creating an attractive website because the fact is that,
- It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave
- 75% of consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design
- 57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile
- 88% of consumers who search for a type of business on a mobile device call or go to that business within 24 hours
Source: graffit
Because of all these amazing statistics about websites and user behaviour I believe that the demand and employment opportunities for web developers will continue to grow in future and there is data to back it up.
According to bureau of labour statistics in America, employment of web developers is actually expected to grow 13 percent from 2020 to 2030,
The average salary of a web developer in America is 77000 dollars per annum.
As a matter of fact you can find thousands of open jobs for web developers on websites like naukri.com
Now I hope it makes clear that why web developers are in high demand and also has a high paying job because of high demand.
Offers flexibility
Another big advantage is web development as a career option can offer a lot of flexibility of work.
Well I mean, if you become a web developer you can work from anywhere in the world because all you need is a computer and internet connection to start working as a web developer.
Because of that you do not have to move to a physical office in order to work and you can work from your home wearing pyjamas and also while travelling.
There are many benefits of flexibility of work like you can set your own schedule and working hours and you can choose your desired place to work if you get work flexibility and you can save a lot of time travelling from home to office.
Become a freelancer or start a business
Another big advantage of web development as a career is that you can become a freelancer or you can also start your own business and Tech based startup.
If you don’t like the corporate culture and you want to be your own Boss then you can become if freelancer in web development and make money.
As a matter of fact there are 7% of developers are freelance consultants. And it is estimated 1.5 million freelance developers are there globally.
So you should know that you are not the only freelance Web developer and
The national average freelance web developer salary in the U.S. is $75,430 per year.
And the fact is that there are many freelance web developers who charge more than 60 Dollars per hour. And there are many top freelance developers who earn more than 130000$ per annum.
Apart from earning money there are many other benefits of freelancing like,
- You can be your own Boss
- You can manage your money and time
- You can also meet new people, get new opportunities, increase your network, and gain new experience
- You can also learn many new skills in web development in your free time like AngularJS, Ajax, PHP, Ruby, and more
- You can get many tax benefits from government for businesses
If you are from India, a survey conducted among Indian freelancers has found that web and mobile development, web designing, internet research and data entry are their key focus areas, and 23% of those surveyed said they earn between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 45 lakh a year.
I hope all of this data can help you understand that freelancing is also a good career option if you have right skills, experience, a good portfolio and reviews.
If you are confused whether freelancing is a good career you can read my another article about the pros and cons of freelancing in detail.
Now apart from working as a freelancer you can also start your own business and startup.
For example you can start your own web hosting company or any reseller hosting company, apart from that you can also start your own blog or you can also develop any application or start a dropshipping website, and any digital marketing agency.
For more amazing list of start up ideas for web developers click here.
Diverse job Opportunities
Another big advantage of web developer as a career option is that you can have diverse job opportunities for example if you learn web development you can then choose different careers like,
- Front-end developer.
- Full-stack engineer.
- Back-end developer.
- Software engineer.
- Senior web developer.
This can be a great advantage to those who might want to switch to a different career if they do not like and enjoy the existing job in future.
At the same time because there are ample options for career, you can choose any one depending upon your interests and skills.
Easily Learn online
Another advantage of web development is that the barrier to entry is quite low and you can easily learn web development and get a job even without a College degree and certificate by taking many courses on various platforms like udemy, code academy, etc.
There are many top technology companies like Google and Apple which are hiring people based on the skills irrespective whether they have degree or not and if these top leading tech companies ditch the college degree criteria, the trend will slowly pass to other tech companies as well in future.
You can also learn web development on the side if you are doing a job and working in any company.
Interesting & creative profession
Another advantage of web development is that it can be an interesting and fun career option for many people if they really like it.
Web development as a career has higher satisfaction rate compared to other career options and it is also one among top 60 best career options in America.
One of the main reasons why web development can be an interesting career is because it is a creative profession.
This means that you will have to create new things every day by taking the feedback of your clients regarding what type of websites they want and you will have to use your creativity and thinking power.
Your creativity will be especially useful if you choose full stack developer who manages both front end and back end of the websites because
the front end of the website deals with things like, website colour combinations, theme, text, image, design, UI, UX etc.
Because the fact is, 75% of consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design.
You will have to learn a few graphic design skills which require creativity.
Web development requires understanding of design, user psychology, and the goals of the business creating the website. If you love a creative challenge, web development can and will provide it.
Because of this reason even the artificial intelligence cannot completely replace humans as web development requires creativity, emotional intelligence, problem solving skills,
understanding the psychology of humans, etc and thankfully these are some skills and traits which only humans have & AI can’t develop.
These are all the advantages of web development as a career option.
Cons of web development
Impact of AI
Yes you heard it right, even though I have said that artificial intelligence cannot completely replace the web development but it can definitely do some harm to the industry by replacing some jobs.
Well for a fact, there are many studies which say that AI is expected to replace 85 million jobs worldwide by 2025..
And web Development Industry is also getting influenced by artificial intelligence.
The main work of web developers is to create websites and work on both frontend and backend.
But in the recent years there are many companies which came up with amazing tools and website Builders like,
- Wix
- Weebly
- Squarespace
- WordPress
- Elementor
Because of these amazing tools if you have enough time and energy or you are willing to learn then you can definitely start your own website without taking any help of web developers in a matter of few hours and a couple of days.
Because of all these tools and softwares many web developers have lost their job and there are many tools and softwares like elementor and thrive website builder which are causing loss of jobs for especially front end developers.
But let me tell you something that you do not need to worry due to rise of these new tools because many business owners still prefer to take the help of web developers for creating websites as they do not want to spend time creating websites rather
focus on their business which is a better investment of time to them and web developers can do a lot more which tools and ready made templates are still limited in customisation compared to what Developers can do.
You can check out this article to learn more about whether web development can get automated by AI in future.
Competition is huge
Another disadvantage of web development is that competition is also huge.
In 2020, there was a total of 26.2 million web developers in the world. And this number is expected to grow by 27 million in next couple of years.
Because there are a lot of web developers in the industry if you want to succeed then you will have to work on your skills,
you should have some USP and also get good reviews and Portfolio if you want to be a freelancer and it can take good amount of time for you to be successful because of competition.
It can be stressful
Another big disadvantage of web development as a career is that it can be quite stressful job and you also have a lot of workload pressure especially if you have to complete the task before the deadline.
There are many web developers work more than 40 hours per week and some would also exceed their work limit to complete the task before the deadline.
As a web developer the large percentage of your work will be spent in front of computer/laptop screen and because of that you can develop many health diseases like obesity and diabetes, eye strain, neck pain, etc.
Continuous learning is required
This is the last disadvantage when it comes to web development, you have to continuously learn and update your skills in order to stay relevant.
Because there will be new programming languages that come with changing technology if you’re not constantly learning and not open minded and aware about the changes then due to excessive competition in the industry some other person would take your position.
These are all the advantages and disadvantages of web development as a career.
Is web developer a good career & worth it?
After learning all the advantages and disadvantages I still believe that web developer is a good career and worth it for a few people.
Web development can be a good career option for a couple of reasons like, web development deals with creating websites and websites are the core of internet and
Internet is constantly growing and it has more than 4 billion people using it, you can make good money in web development and it also has a good future and demand, web development is also easy to learn and you do not need a college degree.
You should consider web development as a career if,
- You have creative thinking
- You have good analytical thinking and problem solving skills
- You have interest in programming language
- You are open minded and always continue to learn new things
- You are a competitive person
In all these cases web development is a good career with that said let’s conclude the article.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about web development as a career.
Do let me know what are your thoughts about web development in the comment section below.
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