These Are the Most Important Programming Languages in 2025

Programming in the Age of AI Assistants These Are the Most Important Programming Languages in 2025

2025-09-29 From Sebastian Gerstl | Translated by AI 5 min Reading Time

IEEE Spectrum has published its annual ranking of the most important programming languages. It shows that AI assistants and GenAI queries are increasingly being used for programming support. This has a significant impact on the publicly visible code landscape.

The rise of AI assistants is particularly noticeable with scripting languages, where "vibe coding" is often employed. However, programming languages tailored for very specific tasks also seem to lose significance — or at least visibility — with the use of GenAI for code generation.(Image: freely licensed / Pixabay) — The rise of AI assistants is particularly noticeable with scripting languages, where "vibe coding" is often employed. However, programming languages tailored for very specific tasks also seem to lose significance — or at least visibility — with the use of GenAI for code generation.
(Image: freely licensed / Pixabay)

Python dominates everything in the world of programming languages. This perhaps unsurprising finding comes from the analysis by IEEE Spectrum, which has been identifying the most in-demand and widespread programming languages in the coding landscape annually since 2013—whether in IT, web applications, server applications, or embedded environments.

However, although Python has been the undisputed leader in the rankings for years, this year's analysis highlights significant changes in the programming landscape. This is less about the actual prevalence of programming languages and more about the way an increasing number of developers are writing their code.

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IEEE ranking of the most in-demand programming languages in 2025. JavaScript has dropped from rank 3 to 6, and TypeScript, also popular for web applications, has fallen from 5 to 7. According to experts, the reason for this is the increased use of generative AI, which is often utilized in "vibe coding" for web applications. Notable: classic C has seen a relative increase in usage (from rank 9 to 8), while the trending language Rust has slightly declined in recent years (from rank 11 to 14).(Image: IEEE Spectrum)

Trending: Python and Java remain firmly in first and second place, but C++, C, and even the less popular C# in recent years have re-established themselves at the top in 2025. Go has dropped significantly in the trend barometer and now ranks 11th (in 2024 it was 7th). Rust also seems to have suffered losses (from 10th to 15th place), but appearances are somewhat deceiving: while in 2024 there was a relative share of 0.1544 Rust queries for every Python query, this slightly increased to 0.1763 in 2025. Generally, there is a relative increase in searches for other programming languages—which is also an indicator of the growing use of AI assistants.(Image: IEEE Spectrum)

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AI-Generated Vibe Coding

The way programmers work is currently undergoing fundamental change. More and more tool providers now offer AI-powered assistants to help with code creation. Developers are also increasingly turning to generative AI: according to a survey by the marketing agency Zebracat, 49% of programmers surveyed said they had asked ChatGPT to generate code snippets. Additionally, 38% admitted to using such snippets as reusable modules or boilerplate code, i.e., reference implementations. Although such surveys should always be taken with a grain of salt, they do reflect the trend currently being observed.

This makes it more challenging to evaluate which programming languages are currently particularly popular or in demand. The more such AI tools are used for automatic code generation, the more inquiries in traditional sources—search engines like Google, exchange platforms like StackOverflow, or GitHub repositories—decline. For example, the number of questions posted weekly on Stack Exchange in 2025 was only 22 percent compared to the previous year, according to IEEE Spectrum.

Thanks to AI support, programmers increasingly need to deal less with the specifics of a particular language. According to analysts at IEEE Spectrum, this is noticeable regardless of the coder's experience level. It starts with simple queries about syntax details, then elements such as control flow and functions are generated—and over time, more and more is entrusted to the AI.

This is particularly noticeable in web applications. JavaScript (ranked 5th this year) and TypeScript (ranked 7th) have fallen significantly in the IEEE ranking of search queries compared to 2024 (JavaScript ranked 3rd, and TypeScript 7th in 2024); the recent supply chain attack on JavaScript's npm package manager is not even considered here, but it could have noticeable effects for the coming year. Especially in these areas, where a lot of "vibe coding" still takes place, more and more programming effort is being entrusted to functions and elements of generative AI.

Meanwhile, the demand for expertise in JavaScript and TypeScript on the job market remains consistently strong; in JavaScript's case, it has even increased. Only developers with expertise in Java (ranked 3rd in the job rankings), SQL (ranked 2nd in the job rankings), and Python (ranked 1st in the job rankings) are in higher demand on the job market in 2025. Python and Java also continue to hold the undisputed top two positions in online search queries and prevalence in repositories such as GitHub, as in previous years.

Generative AI Doesn’t Care Whether a Popular Language Is Suitable for an Application

However, the increasing influence of AI assistants integrated into tools, generative AI queries via platforms like Claude, ChatGPT, or dedicated coding helpers like Cursor, is also noticeable in another way: according to IEEE Spectrum, a trend is emerging that moves away from languages serving specific purposes toward general-purpose code in a widely used "universal language" like C. The IEEE analysts observed that the language R, which is specifically designed for statistical analysis, appears to be declining in application trends despite its continued importance. Instead, generative AI tends to rely on the more widely used C for such queries—making statistical analysis possible but significantly more challenging to implement. Those who fail to adapt or are reluctant to learn the syntax of a new language could quickly run into difficulties during development this way.

This trend could lead to a significant narrowing of the programming language landscape to a handful of widely used languages. While this may initially seem logical and positive, it could create major problems, particularly in fields like natural sciences. For example, while C code may be popular and powerful in the embedded domain, it is often far from suitable or efficient for scientific applications.

Although research efforts are already underway to make LLMs more universal coders, LLMs are still primarily trained based on the languages that are currently most represented in repositories—Python, Java, C/C++, and JavaScript, which provide decades of established code bases. This makes it harder than ever for new languages to gain a foothold.

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Date: 08.12.2025

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The Most Popular Languages in 2025 – And a Glimpse into the Future

This further solidifies the top positions of established languages. The top 3 in the 2025 ranking continue to be Python, Java, and C++, which has risen from 4th to 3rd place. Alongside classic C, C# also improved its relative position compared to Python in the ranking, climbing from 7th place last year to 5th place now. Shell scripts also gained traction and reached rank 9 in 2025 (up from rank 14 in 2024). For the first time in the top 15 is Dart, a language promoted by Google, whose code can be compiled for mobile applications on Arm or x86 architectures as well as JavaScript-based web applications, depending on the framework. The scripting language Lua has dropped out of the top 15 in the ranking (now at rank 21) but is still frequently used in the gaming sector, especially for developing applications for Minecraft or Roblox servers.

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Whether there will still be an IEEE Spectrum ranking for programming languages in 2026 remains uncertain: "Programming is currently undergoing the biggest shift since the emergence of compilers in the early 1950s," the analysts write regarding the state of the programming world observed in 2025. Even if the current trend of generative AI turns out to be a bubble about to burst, the developments of recent years will leave lasting impacts—especially on the use and capabilities of AI assistants for code generation. It is therefore highly likely that the use of LLMs for writing and supporting code will continue to gain ground. If that happens, completely new metrics will be needed in the future to reliably assess the prevalence of a programming language. (sg)