Average Drupal Developers salary

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
Remon's picture

Hello Canadian Drupal developers :),

I’m a senior Drupal developer, I have recently moved to Canada from Egypt. So, I’m not sure what salary should I be expecting or what is the average hourly rate to match my experience.

I’ve been doing Drupal development for almost 7 years and have no shortage of working with north american or european organizations, from UN to big Drupal shops.

I tried consulting websites that provide salary surveys such as SimplyHired or Indeed, however they are extremely polluted by recruitment/staffing firms ads.

I know that it varies a lot according to location, client, expertise and how you market yourself, but a ballpark figure will be quite helpful.

I'd really appreciate people commenting on this post rather than pm'ing me. Hopefully this could serve as a reference for other Drupal developers in the same boat.
Thanks

Comments

I'm guessing that the range

dalin's picture

I'm guessing that the range of salaries for a full-time Drupal developer is huge. Perhaps 30,000 — 130,000

--


Dave Hansen-Lange
Director of Technical Strategy, Advomatic.com
Pronouns: he/him/his

i agree with #1, the range of

earthangelconsulting's picture

i agree with #1, the range of values is pretty wide.

i myself am working as a consultant charging by the hour, rather than on salary and i have no idea what salary i would make if i was working for someone else (it's been years since i've done that). i charge $55-60 per hour as a consultant but that's only for "billable hours", so if you add in time i can't charge for (estimates, administration, time spent on projects on fixed quote that are already over budget) it probably comes to more like $35-45 per hour. and i don't work full-time either.

a lot is going to depend on your experience, and who you end up working for, and what kind of business they do... but if you have 7 years of Drupal experience, you should definitely be on the higher end of the scale. if you were working full-time i would say $55K per year at the very minimum, you are worth more than that! and i'm sure some people here would say my minimum is too low :-)

hope that helps.

cheers,
Peter "Fish" Fisera
http://earthangelconsulting.com

Thanks for sharing your own

Remon's picture

Thanks for sharing your own rate! that really helps :).

well, my rate is probably low

earthangelconsulting's picture

well, my rate is probably low compared to what someone with my experience COULD be charging... but my clients are all nonprofits and small business and environmental organizations, as opposed to suckling at an earth-raping corporate teat like some people do ;-) see http://earthangelconsulting for more.

With seven years of

K.MacKenzie's picture

With seven years of experience you should definitely be making at least $55,000 per year as an in-house full-time developer in Canada. Of course your upward range can depend on your other skill sets, professionalism, communication skills, management skills, etc.

As a freelance consultant in Vancouver you should be able to get between $50/h and $90/h depending on how good you are at selling yourelf, and what other computer related expertise you can offer the client (for example, strong linux or database skills).

I agree. There are multiple

Remon's picture

I agree. There are multiple variables in the equation, not only Drupal :).

7 years experience? Living in

Chris Luckhardt's picture

7 years experience? Living in a major city like Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal?

Your baseline salary should start at $60,000/year. As a freelancer, you should be asking at least $75/hour up to $100/hour.

I know a well established boutique company (a duo with 8 years experience) in the Toronto area who (very successfully) charge $150/hour...just to check their email.

Hope that helps!

Amazing! thank you Chris for

Remon's picture

Amazing! thank you Chris for those figures.

@Remon, since you are new to

cleaver's picture

@Remon, since you are new to Canada you will probably get less money for your first job. In the past, I've hired a few developers who are new to Canada. A lot of companies won't hire you if you don't have experience in North America. Once you are established you can follow the guidelines posted above.

It will help to get out and participate in Drupal events... you'll make contacts hear about jobs. Be sure to have a business card and something online to show the sort of stuff you can do. Employers will be interested in your contributions on drupal.org and github.com.

Sad but true. :)

Remon's picture

Sad but true. :)

FWIW. . . .

jpw1116's picture

We have talked about offering a session/in-service on this same topic—the business side of Drupal for solo developers—at the pending spring 2014 mini-camp (probably in Ellicottville again).

As you know GTA members had a strong showing last time and all who can bordercross are always welcome.

Feel free to message us at the WNYDUG g.d.o page with wishlist items for the topic. A binational perspective would be great, especially if we can wrangle up a expert to provide other pointers.

Thank you.

Calculating Hourly Rates

design4effect's picture

For the year 2014, the statistics are:
days: 365
weekend days: 104
public holidays: 13
working days: 248
(At least in BC, Canada where I am)

Lets assume you're sick or need a holiday once every 2 months.
Then you have (248 - 6 = 242) working days this year (2014).

An 8-hour day is nice but let's face it; for designers, days can be as long as 16 hours.
Let's assume that you like some time to yourself and want to limit yourself to 10 hours a day for work.

Then you have 242*10 hours = 2420 hours to achieve your goal.

For a comfortable living you might consider $55,000/yr enough.

Then your billable hourly rate should be at least:

55000 / 2420 = $22

You can see that this is better than most prices people are suggesting and from what you say, you are capable of.

Go for $25/hr and know that you are making a good income.

  • Kent

Working 50 hours per week at

Chris Luckhardt's picture

Working 50 hours per week at $25/hour is playing life on hard mode. ;) I think even a beginning consultant/freelancer can (and should) ask for at least $35/hour in the North American market.

These numbers are a little off!

jegelstaff's picture

10 years ago I helped start a web development and consulting company. We use Drupal among other things. We now have 13 full time staff. I can tell you this math above is not right.

Besides that...understand there's a huge difference between being a competent developer, and being a competent consultant who can talk to people, understand their needs and put your neck on the line to deliver results. Not everyone is cut out for that.

A normal work year is around 2000 hours (50 weeks times 40 hours a week...a couple weeks off for vacation is the minimum).

But you cannot possibly bill for all that time. If a consultant gets enough billable hours to fill half that time, then you're doing a good job. As an independent, maybe you can push it up towards 70% if you're in demand, but that would be a stretch for most people. You have to spend time on marketing, sales and administration (finding people who might want to work with you, convincing them to work with you, and doing all the extra stuff, like invoicing, so that they can pay you). Frankly, if you bill 40% of your time, you're doing OK, and that's probably the max you should expect to bill, since conservative planning is always the way to go.

Lots of people only want to pay for what they consider "the work" too. So be prepared to not bill for all the meeting time you spend explaining and demoing things to them, or be prepared to push back on that and explain that when you're talking to them and not developing the website, it's still work that you wouldn't otherwise be doing, and it's for them to help them, so they should be paying for that.

So...if you bill for at least 1000 hours a year, that's awesome, and then multiply by your hourly rate to get your gross annual revenue...assuming that everyone pays you. Accounts receivable is another admin headache that independent developers have to deal with.

I know top of the line people who bill $150 or more per hour. Most people are charging between $50 and $100. We bill our clients, mostly non-profits, between $75 and $95 depending on various factors.

And since you may be wondering, we currently pay salary between $40,000 and $65,000 for developers, depending on experience and responsibility. We also provide extra time off at Christmas, on top of three weeks of vacation (not two) and we have a zero overtime policy, and flexible hours because everyone works from home. And a health and insurance benefits plan. Best of all for the developers...they don't have to deal with the sales, marketing, or admin. That is actually the number one reason most of our staff have joined us...they were independents who were sick of that stuff and didn't feel they did a good job at it.

Good luck!

--Julian

Julian's explanation and

pkiff's picture

Julian's explanation and breakdown seems very helpful and accurate to me. In particular, I think it is important to think about how to incorporate getting paid for all the time you spend doing other things you do that a client won't want to see in your list of "billable" hours, if that is how you are billing. Marketing for new clients, setting aside extra money for retirement and to cover periods of illness, administrative work related to invoicing and managing files, is all "work" that you need to do. If you aren't getting paid for it directly, then you need to charge an hourly rate that is high enough so that you cover that extra time as well as the time you actually spend working on code.

That is the same thing that an employer does if they ever need to break down your work into an hourly cost to charge someone: they need to include not just your salary costs, but also your benefit package (RRSP, sick days, etc), and a percentage of their total overhead to cover accounting, front desk or phone reception, IT support, and management staff and all their associated expenses so that you can do your job and focus on code. For an organization, those additional costs can easily be equal to your salary costs, which means that the organization has to charge double what your salary costs are in order to meet the rest of their costs. And so it should not be surprising if those things end up meaning that a freelancer needs to double what they want their "real" hourly wage to be if they want to end up receiving that as their net wage after adding in all their unpaid time and other expenses.

For my independent business I started last year, I'm working on project based quoting: I quote an amount for the total project as one complete cost. I list hourly rates for any additional support or items not listed in my agreement with a client, but how many standard hours I spend on a project is my business, and my client will pay the same bulk project fee regardless. For support calls or scope creep (i.e. additional items a client requests that are not included in the project agreement), my current hourly rate is $75 for things I can hire someone else to do, and $100 for anything that I really need to do myself. Now what my actual hourly wage will turn out to be...well, it turns out that learning to quote for full projects correctly is a challenge and a learning process that I'm still working on!

Phil.

Yes, quoting fixed price is hard!

jegelstaff's picture

We stopped quoting fixed prices years ago, because it's just a fact that in a web development project, you cannot nail down the unknowns all upfront. No one knows everything in the beginning, and people change their minds really easily once they see a working system in front of them.

But people still have only a fixed amount of money to spend in most cases. The only way we've been able to reconcile this is with agile project management principles, mainly Scrum-with-User-Stories.

We've written about that here: http://www.freeform.ca/en/agile-project-planning-chapters-and-stories (first of three articles about our project management process).

Essentially, the deal we make with clients is that if they want to spend X dollars, and X is a reasonable number (ie: we can imagine a way to deliver what they are asking about in that budget), then both parties will engage transparently in the agile project management process to keep the work focused on delivering the highest value items in priority order, so at the end of the budget, as much as is possible has been achieved.

Not everyone can live with that. Some people really have to know that they will get XYZ features for ABC dollars before they will sign any agreement. We feel that approach puts the success of the project at risk, and makes the client really hard to work with so we would rather say no and find people who want to partner more equally. It takes some explaining, and you have to be prepared to say no, but it comes down to knowing what process works for you. Some people do well with fixed prices, but I don't know many.

A relevant link about contract structures for agile projects: http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/peterstev/10-agile-contracts

Also, a long essay I wrote about rfps and the not-for-profit sector, which focuses in part on the dilemma of fixed prices vs project scope: http://www.freeform.ca/en/we-dont-hate-rfps

Best book I know of as a starting point for using agile: http://www.amazon.ca/User-Stories-Applied-Software-Development/dp/032120...

Essentially, the non-technical aspects of web development consulting are the hardest parts. The technical parts are relatively easy. You master a certain language/software/technology, you use it to do something, and that thing you made will stay that way until you make a change. The non-technical parts involve people, which don't have parameters or documented APIs, so they are much harder to sort out for folks who are inclined to technical work.

--Julian

Having a fixed budget is

dalin's picture

Having a fixed budget is fine. It just means that you need to stop at regular points during the build phase and review "You have this many hours (a.k.a. this much money) left, these are the things left that you want us to build, put them in a priority order so that if the money runs out you get the most important things done".

Of course it's not quite that easy, it means changing the way you do business entirely.

--


Dave Hansen-Lange
Director of Technical Strategy, Advomatic.com
Pronouns: he/him/his

Feature Creep

design4effect's picture

Feature Creep - "Cancer to the developer.. Websters V2.01 abridged edition"

@jegelstaff So very, very true!

Andy Inman's picture

Julian / jegelstaff said:

"Besides that...understand there's a huge difference between being a competent developer, and being a competent consultant who can talk to people, understand their needs and put your neck on the line to deliver results. Not everyone is cut out for that."

So very, very true! And if English isn't their first language, then they can more or less forget it. "Good" English isn't good enough to discuss business needs with clients (English or whatever language your target audience needs). I speak "good" Spanish, fluently, but I don't target Spanish-speaking clients, ever.

My own published rates (UK-focused) are here: http://netgenius.co.uk/rates - currently the sterling/dollar exchange rate (multiply by 1.5) will make them look higher than they really are. Note the sliding-scale. This is because short projects are generally not worth the hassle. I'm interested in clients who either have a sizeable project, or have ongoing bits and pieces over time (I price that slightly differently, but the basis is the same.

I work hard, yet doubt if I will see the more than the equivalent of a £50k salary in the year (which is probably the minimum I would look at if I were job-hunting for a permanent role in the UK). In a nutshell, the equivalent of a £50k salary is £100k billings.

Main problem, non-billable time. That goes in research and study, building and maintaining my own systems, admin, bidding for projects, posting comments on d.o :) and more. I assume that I won't be able to bill more than 50% of my time. I don't want to work more than 40 hours a week (though often do). And, I want to be able to pay taxes, social security, healthcare, and even have occasional holidays and a meal out once in a while. Possibly even replace my 11-year old car sometime soon. Do the math(s).

So sure, if somebody goes onto odesk etc. they're going to find quoted rates at, what? Anything from $10? I don't care. I really don't.

Cheap providers are used by cheap clients.



Currently part of the team at https://lastcallmedia.com in a senior Drupal specialist role.

The formula I've always heard

cleaver's picture

The formula I've always heard for self-employed consultants is simple: If you want to make, say $80,000, charge $80/hr. There's 2,000 work hours in a year, but you have to account for overhead (down time, selling, administration, etc.), so 50% is a good guess. If you have a big client who can commit to steady work, you can revise the rate a bit. Or you could always just be happy you're having a good year and put something away for when things are slower.

great man @design4effect on

asghar's picture

great man @design4effect on

Competitive Edge

design4effect's picture

I have to say, “I'm shocked at the rate of response after my post.” when I wrote it I noticed that the last post was in November and I was wondering if anyone would even notice it, or the thread had gone dead.

There is nothing wrong with the math, if you can get 2420 billable hours at $22 and get paid for it you will make $55,000.

If you are a one person show where you have to do your own business planning, marketing, lead building, web site design/maintenance, answering the phone, service calls, billing and accounting, and research and development; you are not a developer.. you are Superman. (Or at least a very smart person with less than 5 clients)

You aren't getting paid for that so subtract however many hours a day you spend doing it from your available billable hours and adjust accordingly. If you spend half the day doing this, increase your rate to $44 (which is more in line with other people are suggesting) and you still make your $55K.

If you can hire someone for $15/hr that doubles your capacity at $45 then you are still making $30/hr which is still over your base rate of $22.

Maybe ten years ago when the web was young and demand was there, a person could make a decent living from an hourly wage but it's not like that any more.

To check for yourself go to CraigsList and post a free job opening for a Drupal developer.
I tried this and although there was a fair bit of spam I was amazed at the talent available, and how little these people were willing to accept for their incredible talent.

That's what you are up against. It's a global economy and no-one cares if their web site was developed by MIT or a couple of Eskimos up north as long it makes them money.

Charge no more than what you have to... to get yourself in the door.

  • Kent

    P.S. @Julian - why would anyone who is competitive in the game, ever consider retirement!

Forgot to say thank you

thekenshow's picture

Kent, you forgot to say thank you for the thoughtful, intelligent responses offered by people much wiser. That's just not nice.

As for your opinions? I wouldn't have guessed you could slag this list, Drupal, your clients, the people you've (apparently) hired and the First Nations in a single thread. Assuming you're not just trolling - it's an achievement of sorts. Happy trails.

--
Less isn't more; just enough is more.
- Milton Glaser

You're Welcome

design4effect's picture

I guess I'm in for the long troll, I've been developing with Drupal since 4.8 and been a registered user for almost 7 years.

If you Google 'design4effect' you will see over 325,000 results, I must be doing something right!

  • Kent

Completely off topic, but

itkadmin's picture

Hi folks

Just to clarify, Inuit, not Eskimo, nor are Inuit First Nations. https://www.itk.ca/note-terminology-inuit-metis-first-nations-and-aborig...

I'm absolutely certain no offence was intended, It's part of my job to clarify these things, where ever I come across them.

k2abhishek's picture

Hi,

I am from India and i have 8 years of experience in Drupal development. Can anyone please let me know how much salary i can expect in a Full time Job in Canada?

Thanks,
Kumar Abhishek

If you didn't find an answer

generalelektrix's picture

If you didn't find an answer in the long thread above, never will ya.

Sorry to bother you friend

k2abhishek's picture

I thought the above comments are very older and i thought the scenario at present might have changed from before.Any how thanks for your time.

generalelektrix's picture

I'll try to be more constructive this time :-). In the province of Quebec, A developper with your experience should be able to find a job in the public area (government, universities, municipalities, etc.) for a salary that would vary in the range 50,000 $ - 70,000 $ per year.

As a freelancer, depending on your efficiency, you could get 50 $ per hour or more for your work. Don't forget that as a freelancer, you don't have all the benefits granted to salaried employees, so you'll have to put some of those earnings aside for retirement, insurances and stuff like that.

Thanks

k2abhishek's picture

Hi,

Thanks alot, I was looking for Full time job not to work as a freelancer.
Your information is a great help.

to try to be helpful.. the

SKAUGHT's picture

to try to be helpful..
the first issue is most work is "contract" most companies don't openly commit to staff. Aside from that, the average base range you might expect is 15-40/hr..realistically. (the lower are probably poor companies to work for). PS: be sure to read any contacts you are offered completely.

Of course, really it depends on the strength of your portfolio, your general knowledge and ability -- not only in Drupal. Everyone wants a 'jack of all trades' (Full stack)

Moreover, new work projects do seem to be more 'front end' heavy. Companies like to talk about JS Frameworks and API backends. Long term Drupal knowledge is great for legacy projects/bug fixes, etc. (lots of D7 project now in that state)

A wider range of companies are starting to pick up D8 projects now (that Drupal and contrib are reaching real stability).

Additional thoughts...

Chris Luckhardt's picture

I'm the lead organizer (as part of a board of directors) of the DrupalTO group in Toronto. I receive frequent communications from recruiters and companies looking to hire Drupal talent. Here's my latest perspective.

Most companies are looking for full-time staff but are having difficulty hiring for those positions. Most recruiters are looking for contract workers. Currently, there's a huge demand for back-end Drupal developers and senior talent. Bonus points if you've got decoupled JavaScript skills, such as React or Angular.

The hourly range for a skilled contract developer with 8 years of experience, in a major market Canadian city, starts at $75/hour and can go as high as 2x that rate. Note the emphasis on "skilled" (e.g. you can comfortably work/code with Drupal's API). A similar full-time position in a major market is approximately $90000/year. I do recommend verifying/researching those rates yourself.

In my opinion, Julian's reply from 2.5 years ago is still the most accurate and mathematically detailed reply in the thread. Cleaver's response is also on point.

Hope that adds some insight! :)

Edit: Spelling is hard. ;)

Thanks Alot

k2abhishek's picture

Hi Chris,

Thanks a lot for sharing your valuable information.

I do have good knowledge of back-end development like Custom module development and theming.I also have knowledge of Stack and Jquery but i am still learning Angular JS and Drupal 8.

Please let me know how can i contact those recruiter in Canada?As the Agencies here in India are not very helpful in finding relevant jobs of Drupal in Canada.
I may be asking for bit more from you, but it will be really great help for me.

Waiting for your response.

Thanks,
Kumar Abhishek

Start with LinkedIn...

Chris Luckhardt's picture

My recommendation is to start with LinkedIn. Create a profile there and be sure to highlight that you're looking for work in Canada. Your goal won't be easy to achieve but with demonstrable skills, good luck/timing, and patience you could find a job in Canada. :)

I do have Profile in Linkedin

k2abhishek's picture

Yes, i do have profile in Linkedin, I will update it accordingly.

Thanks

Thanks Alot

k2abhishek's picture

Hi skaught,

Thanks alot for your valuable information.You comment is really helpful.

An important detail is if you

adewinne's picture

An important detail is if you are moving to Toronto, or planning to work remotely from India. You should adjust salary expectations. Also, don't discount language skills. Communication is key in this industry as there is more and more emphasis on usability and front-end. Building great experiences often requires teamwork and collaboration with clients and end-users. The Drupal back-end developer in my opinion is still relevant, but more so as an expert. A web developer must be proficient in front-end in my opinion. After all, if you can't build a front-end, it's difficult to build a website, right?

Alex De Winne, Therefore Interactive
alexd@therefore.ca
www.therefore.ca

I agree

k2abhishek's picture

Yes, I will take care of that.Your information is a great help.

Thanks

Drupal Devloper Jobs Canada

prateek_drupal's picture

Dear All,

Thanks for such a valuable info in threads.

I will be coming to Canada Next year. So have couple of doubts. It will be more than a help if anyone can answer me.

Being a 5 years plus experienced in Web Development and Drupal. Which are the areas in Canada which has most job's for Drupal developers?

What is a average salary in the area which you are referring.

Thanks in Advance.

you can also reach me at speed.prateek@gmail.com.

Vancouver

Group organizers

Group notifications

This group offers an RSS feed. Or subscribe to these personalized, sitewide feeds: