Historical salary data: This article draws on Course Report’s 2020 alumni survey, older school outcomes reports, and alumni interviews conducted at the time. The figures below are historical observations, not current salary estimates or guarantees of employment. The school-by-school figures include 2018 reports whose original links are no longer available.
How to use salary reports when comparing bootcamps
- Match the program, campus or online format, graduation dates, and length of the job-search window to the option you are considering.
- Check how many people enrolled, graduated, sought work, and reported a salary. A salary for employed respondents does not describe everyone who started the course.
- Keep averages, medians, base pay, and total compensation separate. Compare the same measure, location, and experience level.
- Ask the school for its latest complete outcomes report and any independent audit. CIRR’s reports and historical data provide one place to start.
For broader labor-market context, see the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics profile for web developers. Its occupational wage figures cover workers across experience levels; they are not estimates of a new bootcamp graduate’s starting pay.
What will your salary be after coding bootcamp? Coding bootcamps are judged almost entirely by their ability to find students high-paying jobs as web developers. Some schools release data about alumni jobs, others offer money-back job guarantees or deferred tuition, but how much are students earning when they graduate and how does their earning potential change as they gain experience? In its 2020 study, Course Report surveyed coding bootcamp graduates to better understand who is graduating from coding bootcamps and how successful they are in the workforce. Let’s explore the web developer salaries that alumni see after a bootcamp.
How much do coding bootcamp graduates earn in their first jobs?
In Course Report’s 2020 study of 3,043 graduates, respondents reported an average salary of $69,079, with a median salary of $65,000 in their first jobs.
Not only is that salary impressive, but it also marks a 56% salary increase in comparison to an alumni’s pre-bootcamp salary. For some, like former administration worker Devon Lindsey, the raise is even more transformative: “I quadrupled my salary and have this whole new exciting career coming my way,” she says. Linguistics and anthropology major Ileana Ordonez also saw her salary quadruple after graduating from General Assembly’s Web Development Immersive: “I knew exactly how much I was worth when I negotiated [my salary]... I actually got more than what I was looking for, which blew my mind and I’m really happy about it.”
We found that about 66% of coding bootcamp grads found their jobs within 90 days or less.
How much do coding bootcamp graduates earn in their second and third web developer jobs?
In the 2020 survey, we found that in their second jobs, bootcamp graduates earn $80,943 per year, and by their third jobs, alumni report earning, on average, $99,229 per year! These respondents reported higher average salaries in later jobs as web developers; their experience does not establish what any individual graduate will earn.
For example, Julia worked for nonprofits before attending Sabio, and, four years after graduating, reported that her salary was over $100,000.
Daniel King, a former high school teacher, graduated from Codesmith in 2016 and landed a job at small online health startup MedCircle. After 10 months there, learning and growing as an engineer, Daniel accepted a job as a Web Solutions Engineer at Google, where the historical salary figure cited here was $120,081.
How much can you earn as a web developer if you don’t have a college degree?
Post-graduation salaries certainly depend on factors like background and education. However, while the lack of a college degree can limit your career, programming is a field that values ability over degrees. In the 2020 survey, respondents without bachelor’s degrees reported an average salary of $61,836 – which is an average increase of 77% compared to their pre-bootcamp salaries.
For example, Temple Naylor attended The Tech Academy at age 19, without going to college, and landed a Lead Developer role after graduating.
Respondents with a bachelor's degree reported a salary increase of 57% to $71,267.
Does the amount of pre-bootcamp programming experience affect salary?
The 2020 survey reported different average first-job salaries by prior programming experience:
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Graduates who were complete beginners before bootcamp saw an average salary of $66,748 in their first jobs.
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Graduates who taught themselves some code before bootcamp reported an average of $69,854 in their first jobs.
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Graduates who were experienced programmers before bootcamp reported an average of $76,735 in their first jobs.
For example, Emma, a graduate of The Software Guild, learned some R and Python before starting the bootcamp, and, at the time of her interview, was working as a developer at Best Buy. She reflects on her career change: “I was a volunteer before this job, so by moving into this career, my salary multiplied by six.”
Which coding language should I learn to earn the highest web development salaries?
In the 2020 survey, salary averages differed by the primary language studied. These comparisons do not isolate the effect of a language from location, prior experience, or other differences between respondents. Bootcamp grads who learned Swift reported the highest average salary of $90,500. Those who learned Ruby on Rails reported an average salary of $81,111, and students who learned Python saw average salaries of $78,604. Bootcamp grads who learned C# also reported high employment at 92% and an average salary of $59,752.
In which cities do coding bootcamp grads earn the most?
The 2020 survey also compared salaries by location. Respondents working in San Francisco reported the highest average, $97,666, followed by Seattle at $88,586 and New York City at $87,205.
However, living costs are likely to be higher in those tech hubs in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York City, so make sure to take that into consideration when looking for a job.
What types of Web Developer jobs can bootcamp grads get?
Based on data from our 2020 Coding Bootcamp Graduate Outcomes Survey, these are the most popular job titles that bootcamp grads reported:
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Software Engineer
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Front-End Developer
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Junior/Associate Developer
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QA Engineer
- Product Manager
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Mobile Developer
For a deep dive into what these jobs entail, the languages you need to learn, and which bootcamps teach them, check out our guide to Web Developer Jobs!
How much do graduates from each coding bootcamp earn?
The following figures were reported in older school outcomes reports, including second-half 2018 reports. They are retained here as historical examples. The original PDF links and Flatiron report link now return 404 errors, so those links have been removed; the figures have not been reverified against replacement reports and should not be used to rank current programs.
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Hack Reactor graduates have a median starting salary of $70,000 in Los Angeles, $95,000 in New York City, $115,000 in San Francisco
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Flatiron School graduates earn an average of $76,000 in New York City
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Fullstack Academy graduates have a median starting salary of $72,000 in Chicago, $90,000 in New York City
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Tech Elevator graduates have a median starting salary of $55,000 in Cincinnati, of $55,000 in Cleveland, $61,000 in Columbus, $62,000 in Pittsburgh
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The Software Guild graduates have median starting salary of $65,000 in Minneapolis, $44,340 in Louisville
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Thinkful online bootcamp graduates have a median starting salary of $62,000 in the full-time program, $60,000 in the part-time program
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Turing bootcamp graduates in Denver have a median starting salary of $79,500 in the back-end program, $73,000 in the front-end program
Note: All of the above numbers are self-reported about graduates who successfully completed each course, and some of them have been evaluated by a third-party auditor. Also note that some of these results are reported via averages, and some via medians, so the amounts may not always be comparable. You can find more coding bootcamp outcomes data at the Council on Integrity Results Reporting.
How can you increase your chances of a high salary after coding bootcamp?
Practice before enrolling. In the 2020 survey, respondents with some self-teaching reported an average first-job salary of $69,854 versus $66,748 for complete beginners, a difference of $3,106. This is an association in the survey, not evidence that self-teaching alone caused the difference.
Having a college degree certainly helps, but it’s still possible to land a respectable salary without one. Finding a job in a city with higher salaries can help too, but the living costs may be higher in those areas.
In an alumni interview, Tom Goldenberg, approached bootcamp with a lot of intensity: “My advice is you do really have to go above and beyond,” he says. “You have to network and build really non-trivial projects to showcase for employers to get that full-time position.”
Then once you graduate, it’s all about networking, meeting people, and showcasing your skills.
FURTHER READING
Written by
Imogen Crispe, Content Creator and Entrepreneur
Imogen is a writer and content producer who loves exploring technology and education in her work. Her strong background in journalism, writing for newspapers and news websites, makes her a contributor with professionalism and integrity.
