📖 Developer Satisfaction 2026 Report

👥 Demographics

tl;dr

Roles – Like last year, the most common roles were tool developer and MediaWiki Core developer.
Tenure
- Mix of tenure in the Wikimedia developer community: 42% have 10+ years, 25% have 4-9 years, and 33% have 3 or fewer years.
- The majority (63%) began contributing non-technical content (e.g. editing Wikipedia) 10+ years ago
Gender – Like last year, the majority of respondents identify as men.
Language – Like last year, respondents speak more than 25 different languages.
Geography
- Like last year, the majority of respondents reported living in Northern & Western Europe or North America.
- This year, we had fewer respondents who reported living in Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

# Functional roles

Volunteers: “What are your volunteer role(s) in the Wikimedia developer community?”
WMF and affiliate staff: “What are your role(s) as a Wikimedia or Chapter/Affiliate staff member (not as a volunteer)?”
For WMF or affiliate staff who also volunteer, we asked both questions.

Functional roles are not mutually exclusive. Respondents were able to select multiple functional roles.

Of the 202 volunteers and staff who responded, more than half (54%) identified as tool developers; this makes sense because, as of two survey iterations ago, we have combined the DSS with the Cloud Services Annual Survey. Additionally, 37% identified as MediaWiki Core developers, and 34% identified as gadget developers.

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# Roles and role combinations

Because functional roles are not mutually exclusive (i.e., respondents were able to select multiple functional roles), we looked at the various roles and role combinations of respondents -- these are not mutually exclusive.

The most common role or role combinations were: tool developer + gadget developer (12%); tool developer only (12%); and MediaWiki Core developer only (11%). Because we've combined the Developer Satisfaction Survey and the Cloud Services Annual Survey, this may account for the high percentage of tool and gadget devs.

Role / Role Combinations	N	%
Tool Dev only	29	14%
Tool Dev + Gadget Dev	20	10%
MediaWiki Core Dev only	18	9%
MediaWiki Core Dev + Gadget Dev + Tool Dev	14	7%
SRE only	11	5%
All other roles / role combinations	94	45%
Did not disclose a role	21	10%
Total	207	100%

The most common role pairing among survey respondents was tool developer + gadget developer.

Additional common pairings included:

Tool dev + MediaWiki Core developer
MediaWiki Core developer + gadget developer

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# Tenure

“For how many years have you been involved in the Wikimedia developer community in any role?”

More than a third (42%) of respondents said they have 10 or more years of involvement in the Wikimedia developer community; a quarter (25%) said 4-9 years; and about a third (33%) said 3 years or fewer.

“For how many years have you been involved in any development role—either within or outside the Wikimedia developer community?”

More than half (62%) of respondents said they have 10 or more years experience in any dev role
25% said 4-9 years
13% said 3 years or fewer

“Have you ever contributed non-technical content to a Wikimedia project (e.g., Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata)? Examples of this would include editing Wikipedia articles, uploading images to Commons, or adding Wikidata items."

The majority of respondents (93%) do contribute non-technical content to Wikipedia or have in the past.

76% said they currently contribute non-technical content
17% said they have contributed non-technical content, but don't anymore
7% said they have never contributed non-technical content

“In what year did you first start contributing non-technical content to a Wikimedia project (e.g., Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata)?"

For respondents who said they do contribute (or have contributed) non-technical content, we asked what year they first started contributing. The majority of respondents (68%) said they began contributing non-technical content 10+ years ago.

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# Tenure×Functional roles

We compared functional roles between two tenure buckets:

respondents with 0-3 years tenure
respondents with 4+ years tenure

The group of respondents with 4+ years tenure had a higher percentage of tool developers and MediaWiki Core developers, and lower percentage of gadget developers. For all other roles, both tenure groups had similar percentages or else the Ns were too small to make meaningful comparisons.

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# Gender

“How would you describe your gender identity?”

Categories are not mutually exclusive. Respondents were able to select multiple gender identities if applicable.

Of those who answered the question:

the majority (75.1%) identified as men
9.0% said they preferred not to provide their gender identity
8.5% identified as nonbinary, genderqueer, and/or transgender
7.3% identified as women

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# Language

“Is English your first or primary language?”

The majority of respondents (58%) said that English is not their first or primary language.

For affiliate staff and non-staff volunteers, the majority of respondents reported that English was not their first or primary language. For Wikimedia Foundation staff, a little more than half (54%) reported that English is their first or primary language.

For respondents who said that English was not their first or primary language, we asked, "What is your first, or native language, or what language are you most fluent in?"

Respondents reported speaking a wide variety of first, native, or most-fluent languages: 29 languages in total. Of these, the most common first languages besides English were: French and Dutch, followed by Spanish and Polish.

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# Region

“In what region do you primarily live?”

The majority of respondents (65%) reported living in: Northern & Western Europe, or North America.

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# DSS experience

“Did you take Wikimedia’s Developer Satisfaction Survey last year?”

47% said yes, they were returning survey takers
35% said no, they were first-time survey takers
18% said they were unsure