Number of developers

The routing model uses the number of developers (software engineers) per location to sort the resulting list of combinations.

Within the time frame of this research project, no dataset could be found with a considerable number of listed countries regarding the number of sofware engineers per location. Therefore, the ratio of software engineers per location is represented by the ratio of technicians in R&D. When there was no value for a location, the weighted world average is used. Because software engineers are part of the group of technicians in R&D, this will probably lead to higher numbers than expected, but it will still give an indication of the availability of software engineers per location relative to other locations.

The number of software engineers is calculated on the number of people speaking the chosen language instead of the total number of inhabitants. A minimum of 1,000 developers per location is used next to the language to filter the list of possible locations. A location with less then that minimum number of developers is regarded too small for deployment of a software development site.

Because the model is meant to only search additional locations, the numbers of developers of any current locations will not take part in the result list.

Sources can be found in the research report, which can be downloaded here.