How to Become a Web Developer

What a Web Developer Does

A web developer builds the websites and web applications that people use every day: a store checkout, a patient portal, a bank’s login page, a company’s marketing site. You take a design and a set of requirements and turn them into pages that load quickly, work on a phone, and don’t break when real people use them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counts the job as Web Developers (SOC 15-1254). The Labor Department’s O*NET profile describes them as the people who develop and implement websites, web applications and interactive web interfaces, and who check that code meets industry standards. BLS counts about 70,190 web developers in the United States.

Front-End, Back-End and Full-Stack Web Developer Paths

Most people who ask how to become a web developer are really asking which kind. There are three common paths.

• Front-end web developer. You build what the visitor sees and touches: layout, forms, menus, animations. The core tools are HTML, CSS and JavaScript, plus a framework such as React or Vue. You care about accessibility, speed and how the page behaves on different screens.
• Back-end web developer. You build the part that runs on the server: the logic, the database, the connection to payment and email services. You write in a language such as Python, Java, C# or server-side JavaScript, and you need solid SQL.
• Full-stack web developer. You do both. Small companies and agencies hire for this because they have one or two developers, not a team. You trade some depth for range.

You don’t have to choose on day one. Most beginners start on the front end because the results show up in a browser within an hour, then add back-end skills as projects demand them. If you enjoy design and users, lean front-end. If you like data and systems, lean back-end.

Skills Employers Ask for in a Web Developer

Job postings for web developers repeat a short list. HTML, CSS and JavaScript come first. After that, employers name a front-end framework, Git for version control, and the ability to work with an API. For back-end roles they add a server language, SQL, and some familiarity with a cloud platform.

The less technical items matter as much. Employers look for people who can read a vague request and ask the right question, explain a technical limit to a manager, and finish a project instead of leaving it at ninety percent. A web developer who tests a form on a phone before shipping it is the one who gets kept.

Security basics are now a baseline, not a specialty. Know how to handle user input safely, why passwords are hashed, and what a cross-site scripting bug looks like. That overlaps with the information security analyst career if you want to specialize later.

Build a Web Developer Portfolio

A portfolio is the main thing that separates a hired web developer from an applicant. Employers will open your links, so what you build has to work.

Aim for three to five projects that show range. A good set includes a site you designed and built from scratch, an application that stores data in a database, and something that uses a public API. Put each one online at a real address, keep the code in a public repository, and write two or three sentences on what it does and what you learned.

Avoid tutorial clones that look identical to every other applicant’s. Change the idea: build something for a local club, a small business, or a hobby you know well. A project with a real user, even a single one, tells an employer more than a polished copy of a course project.

How to Become a Web Developer: Education and the Typical Route

BLS lists the typical entry education as a bachelor's degree. The field is more open than most in IT, though. Some web developers come from bootcamps, associate degrees, or self-study and a strong portfolio, and what employers require varies by company and by the kind of work.

A degree helps most in three situations: you have no work history, you want back-end or enterprise work where employers screen by credential, or you want a route into management later. The usual path is a bachelor’s degree with programming and database coursework, projects that go into the portfolio, an internship if you can get one, and a first job at a small company or agency where you touch the whole site.

You can also start with an associate degree and transfer. Our online IT associate degrees ranking lists lower-cost starting points that count toward a bachelor’s.

Which Online Degree Fits a Web Developer Career

Many online IT bachelor’s degrees offer a web development concentration or a set of web electives, and that is the closest fit on this site. Look at the course list, not the program name. You want required courses in programming, databases, web design and web application development, and a capstone where you build something that runs.

Check whether the program lets you build the portfolio as you go. Courses that end with a deployed project are worth more than courses that end with an exam. If you want a broader foundation first, an IT degree with networking and security courses gives you range that a narrow web program lacks.

Our best online IT bachelor’s degrees ranking lists programs with cost, accreditation and outcomes on each card, so you can compare concentrations side by side. If you already hold a bachelor’s, our online IT master’s degrees ranking covers graduate options.

Web Developer Pay

The median annual wage for web developers is $92,650, or $44.54 an hour, per the BLS May 2025 wage survey. The 10th percentile is $48,100 and the 90th is $162,290. That is a wide spread, and it reflects the range of the job, from building brochure sites to engineering applications for millions of users.

The median is below the computer systems analyst median of $105,850 and the network and systems administrator median of $99,130. See our web developer salary page for what moves pay inside the range.

Web Developer Job Outlook

BLS projects 3.8% growth in web developer employment from 2025 to 2035, with about 5,300 openings each year. Compare that to the -4.1% change projected for network and systems administrators and the -3.5% change for computer user support specialists. Web development is one of the steadier paths in this group.

The caution is at the low end. Site builders and templates handle simple pages with no developer at all, and AI tools write routine code. The work that stays in demand is application development, performance, accessibility, security and integration. Learn those and the outlook is better than the headline number.

A Realistic View of Web Development

The job is more varied than people expect and less glamorous than it looks. You will spend a lot of time reading other people’s code, fixing a bug that only shows up in one browser, and waiting on a client to supply the content that the page needs. Deadlines are real, and some employers expect evening releases.

The tools also change. A framework that dominates job postings today may be fading in five years. Developers who understand the underlying web, meaning HTML, HTTP, JavaScript and how a browser draws a page, adapt without starting over. Plan to keep learning every year, and treat that as part of the pay.

The reward is that your work is visible. You ship something, send a link, and a person uses it. That immediate feedback is why people stay in the field.

How to Get Your First Web Developer Job

Start with HTML and CSS until you can build a responsive page from a blank file. Add JavaScript and make something interactive, then learn Git and put everything in a public repository. Build your portfolio projects in that order, and put them online.

Then apply widely: small agencies, in-house teams at local businesses, nonprofits, and junior developer roles at larger firms. Freelance or volunteer work counts as experience when you can link to the result. In interviews you will be asked to explain your own code, so be ready to say why you made each choice. A small fix contributed to an open-source project shows you can read unfamiliar code.

If an employer is slow to hire juniors, a related support or testing role can get you inside, and you can move to development within a year or two. Our IT careers overview shows the neighboring jobs.

Web Developer Compared with Other IT Careers

Web developers sit in the middle of the IT pay range. The web developer median of $92,650 is above the computer network support specialist median of $76,220 and the computer user support specialist median of $61,860, and below the information security analyst median of $129,180.

What sets the job apart is how people enter it. Network and systems administration usually asks for a degree plus certifications. Web development asks for a degree or a portfolio, and often both. If you like building things more than maintaining them, this is the IT path that fits, and a bachelor’s degree with a web concentration keeps the security, database and analysis jobs open if you change your mind.

Where Web Developer Jobs Are

California has the most web developers, about 7,320 of the 70,190 BLS counts nationally, and the top five states hold 36% of them. Size isn't the same as concentration: Washington has the most of these jobs relative to its workforce, at 2.77 times the national share. Remote work loosens this for some employers, but local demand still shapes who is hiring near you.

The 10 largest of 47. Concentration compares the state's share of these jobs with the national share, so 1.00x matches the country. These figures are for web developers, BLS May 2025.

Web Developer Jobs in Major Metros

Among the 48 metro areas in our city guides with a published count, New York City has the most, about 4,200 workers. Seattle is the most concentrated, at 3.69 times the national share.

The 10 largest of 48. These figures are for web developers, BLS May 2025.

IT Careers Side by Side

Web Developers rank 7 of 9 by median pay among the IT occupations we cover. Pay, projected change and openings don't always move together, so weigh all three against the education each job asks for.

Sorted by median pay. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, and Employment Projections, 2025-35.