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October 3, 2026

The future of Java development and its labour market

Java holds its place in the TIOBE index better than any major rival. In the twelve months to September 2026 Java lost 9.7% of its rating, Python 31.6% and C# 33.9%. At the same time large organisations build their AI features on the Java backend they already run. In the Netherlands about 25,000 developers list Java as a skill, yet only 2,974 carry Java in their title, against 296 vacancies. Our conclusion: experienced Java engineers will get scarcer in the coming years. Whoever needs one should hire now.

In September 2026 Java ranks fourth in the TIOBE index at 7.54%. Its absolute rating has been falling for years, like that of almost every major language. What counts is the ratio: Java declines more slowly than the rest and gains ground as a result. The figures are TIOBE’s; the conclusions are ours.

Java gains ground on the rest

Over the twelve months to September 2026 Java lost 0.81 points, or 9.7% of its rating. Python lost 31.6%, C# 33.9% and Go 52.6%; Go dropped from eighth to twelfth place. Of the six largest languages only C grew. As a share of those six, Java rose from 13.6% to 14.7%. In May 2026 it briefly passed C++ for third place, 7.94% against 7.92%.

The clearest shift is against C#, its direct rival in business software. In January 2026 TIOBE’s chief executive Paul Jansen called it “an open question” whether Java could keep C# at bay. Since then C# fell from 7.39% to 4.22%, and Java from 8.71% to 7.54%. The ratio between the two moved from 1.18 to 1.79 in eight months.

Other sources point the same way. In the 2025 Stack Overflow survey 29.6% of professional developers use Java, level with C# (29.9%) and well above Go (17.4%) and Kotlin (11.5%). The release rhythm holds: JDK 25, a long-term support release, shipped on 16 September 2025 and JDK 26 on 17 March 2026.

AI agents run on the existing stack

Many organisations build their AI work in Java. In Azul’s 2026 survey of more than 2,000 Java users, 62% of organisations use Java to build AI functionality, up from 50% a year earlier. Spring AI reached version 1.0 in May 2025 with tool calling and support for the Model Context Protocol, and the official MCP Java SDK is maintained together with Spring AI. Meanwhile 85% of developers use AI tools regularly, according to JetBrains.

The agent gets built where the data, the transactions and the security already live. In most large organisations that is a Java backend. Agentic coding adds work to Java teams.

What this means for the Dutch market

LinkedIn Talent Insights counts about 25,000 professionals in the Netherlands with Java as a skill in a developer role (25,307, September 2026). Only 2,974 of them carry Java in their job title, against 296 open vacancies with such a title: roughly one vacancy for every ten professionals. In the broad group 17% changed role; in the narrow group 14%. For context: Statistics Netherlands (CBS) counts 229,000 software developers (second quarter of 2026).

Put those numbers next to TIOBE and a pattern appears. Courses and new learners move towards Python and newer languages. The installed Java systems stay and now get AI functionality on top. That combination produces a shrinking inflow against stable or growing demand: a quiet shortage of people who know the existing systems. The shortage grows with every quarter the inflow lags.

Advice for companies that want to grow

  • Hire now. Demand for experienced Java engineers rises with every AI project on the existing backend; the inflow does not. Whoever wants a stronger team in 2027 starts this quarter.
  • Write vacancies on skills. Selecting on the title “java developer” reaches about 3,000 people; backend and full stack developers with Java experience number about 25,000.
  • Approach people directly. More than eight in ten did not change role in the measured period. Waiting for applicants misses them.
  • Let your own Java team integrate AI. With Spring AI and the MCP Java SDK existing engineers build agents on your own backend, without a second stack.
  • Name your Java version and framework in the vacancy. It is the first thing an experienced candidate checks.

Limits

TIOBE measures search engine hits for a language, not lines of code, usage or jobs. Its own site says the index is not about the language with the most code. The volatility shows it: Python lost a third of its rating in a year while nobody stopped using Python. A single month says little, so we read direction across twelve months and across sources.

Our reading is falsified if Java’s decline speeds up to match its rivals over the next twelve months; if the next Stack Overflow survey shows professional Java usage clearly below 25%; or if Dutch Java vacancies fall while role changes rise, which would point to a surplus. The Azul figures come from a vendor surveying its own audience of Java users. The LinkedIn figures cover only professionals with a profile and include people with Java as one skill among many.

Sources