The latest edition of the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Web Development Statistics report ranks North Carolina fourth among states in the number of web developers, behind California, Florida and Georgia.
But it’s not just the sheer number of programmers that makes the state the No. 4 state.
The top five are clustered around the state’s capital Raleigh and its surrounding area, including Charlotte and the city of Fayetteville, the latter of which has a population of nearly 1.3 million.
That gives the state a population advantage of about 200,000 over neighboring states, according to NCES.
But the top five also include major metropolitan areas in Charlotte, Raleigh and Fayetteboro, which have a combined population of more than 4 million.
While it’s a good start for the state, the numbers are still very much in flux, according a NCES press release.
The survey asked whether a person had worked in a web development role, or had spent time in the web industry in the past 12 months, the most recent available data.
It’s important to note that this is an indicator of the state of the web development industry, which has not been updated in years, according the release.
In general, the survey’s results are not an accurate measure of the market for web developers.
For example, there are more than 2.2 million people working in the U.S. in web development.
But NCES says that there is no way to know how many of those web developers are employed full-time, or if there are full-timers working for companies such as Adobe and Microsoft who could be using that time to create a better web.
But the results are still a good indication of where the web is heading.
And it suggests that it may be time to move on from the industry.