The programming languages that will get you a banking job now

If you have a technology job with a large bank, which coding languages do you need to know? And are they any different to the languages used by developers elsewhere?

Based upon our analysis of current job advertisements at seven big banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, UBS, Credit Suisse and Barclays) there are two main languages banks really want to hire for now: Java, and Python. To embellish your CV further, you might also want to learn JavaScript and C++.  

The chart below shows the distribution of currently open jobs specifying these languages at major banks globally. And the charts at the bottom of this page show the number of jobs mentioning each language currently on offer at each bank individually. As we observed earlier this week, Goldman Sachs is currently advertising a disproportionate number of engineering jobs. 

Based on current openings, banks' demand for programming languages is similar but not identical to other industries. This year's GitHub State of the Octoverse report found that JavaScript remains the most popular language globally, followed by Python, Java, PHP, C# and C++.  By comparison, C# is only mentioned in 6% of banks' job openings that request programming languages now, and PHP features in just 2%.  

Needless to say, it's not usually enough to know a single programming language. Most jobs specify multiple languages: you'll be expected to know Python and Java and C#. However, if you're new to programming the charts below should at least guide you on where to start. 

The programming languages that will get you a job at Goldman Sachs

The programming languages that will get you a job at JPMorgan

The programming languages that will get you a job at Morgan Stanley

The programming languages that will get you a job at Citi

The programming languages that will get you a job at UBS

The programming languages that will get you a job at Credit Suisse

The programming languages that will get you a job at Barclays

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

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