Insights from the 2026 TokyoDev Developer Survey
Each year, TokyoDev runs a survey to better understand the experiences of international software developers in Japan. This year 733 people participated, answering nearly 50 questions on topics such as compensation, working conditions, AI, and life in Japan.
Median compensation held steady at 9.5 million yen
Respondents had a median compensation of 9.5 million yen, unchanged from 2025. 62% of respondents reported that their compensation had increased over the past year, up from 57% last year. Only 7% reported that it had decreased.
Compensation continued to rise with professional experience. Respondents with less than one year of experience made a median of 4.5 million yen, while those with more than 20 years of experience made a median of 16.5 million yen.
Link to sectionoverview.years_of_experience
The pay gap between international and Japanese companies stopped shrinking
Since we first asked about employer type in our 2020 survey, respondents at international companies have always earned more than those at Japanese companies. The gap between Japanese subsidiaries of international companies and Japanese-headquartered companies peaked in 2022 at 93%, then narrowed every year: 73% in 2023, 47% in 2024, and 35% in 2025.
This year, that narrowing came to a halt. Respondents at Japanese subsidiaries earned a median of 11.5 million yen, 35% more than the 8.5 million yen earned at Japanese-headquartered companies, the same gap as last year. Respondents working for international companies without operations in Japan earned the most, at 12.5 million yen.
Link to sectionoverview.current_employer
Machine learning roles paid more than experience alone would suggest
Comparing each work area by its respondents' average experience and compensation shows that the two generally went hand in hand. Areas with more experienced respondents paid more, with people management (13.8 million yen on average) and platform engineering (13.4 million yen) at the top.
Machine learning was the clearest exception. Respondents working in it averaged the least experience of any area, 7.5 years compared to 8.8 years overall, yet made 11.8 million yen, above the 10.7 million yen average. Game development went the other way: its respondents averaged 10.7 years of experience but made only 9.9 million yen.
Link to sectionoverview.work_areas
Software Engineering
Infrastructure
Quality assurance
Management
Data/AI
Design
Other Areas
AI coding tools became part of everyday development
Last year, 94% of respondents already used AI tools. This year, that rose to 96%, but the bigger change was in how heavily they relied on them. 78% of respondents generated at least half of their code with AI, up from about a third in 2025.
Link to section⚖️ AI Code Generation
Similarly, 68% used AI to generate or refactor code at least a few times a day, up from 38% last year, and a third said they used it constantly.
The tools respondents used changed, too. Claude overtook ChatGPT as the most popular AI tool, used by 72% of respondents, while ChatGPT fell from 71% last year to 46%. Claude Code, which we asked about for the first time this year, was used by 68%.
Link to section🤖 AI Tools
Employers are a big part of this shift: 85% of respondents said their employer encouraged or required AI use, and 20% said it was required.
Most respondents saw the change as positive. 54% said AI had made their day-to-day experience as a developer better, compared to 26% who said it had made it worse, and only 10% disagreed that AI had made them a lot more productive. At the same time, concern is growing: 32% of respondents saw AI as a threat to their job security, up from 19% last year.
Link to section🧠 AI Impact
Changes to immigration policy left many developers feeling less welcome
This year we asked for the first time how changes to Japan's immigration and residency policies over the past year had affected respondents. 538 respondents reported at least one effect. The most common was feeling less welcome, cited by 67% of them, followed by uncertainty about staying in Japan (60%) and increased anxiety (56%).
Link to section👮 Immigration Measures
The same concerns came up elsewhere in the survey. Half of respondents named hostility towards foreigners as one of the negative aspects of life in Japan, placing it alongside isolation (52%) and cultural barriers (51%), behind only poor compensation (69%). Finances were also under pressure: 64% said the weakening yen had hurt them.
Despite this, most respondents remained committed to living here. 57% said their quality of life had improved since first arriving in Japan, and 44% planned to stay permanently. Only 3% planned to leave soon.
Link to section✈️ Remaining in Japan
Remote work and flexible hours tended to go hand in hand
Companies continued to move away from optional remote work. 27% of respondents could choose whether to work remotely, down from 32% last year, while hybrid work rose from 43% to 46%.
Remote work and flexible hours tended to go together. 55% of respondents who could not work remotely had fixed working hours, compared to 13% of those in hybrid workplaces and 7% of those who could choose whether to work remotely.
Link to section🕔 Working Hours
Link to section🔍 Job Search Status
The gender pay gap persisted at every experience level
Of our respondents, 87% were men and 10% were women. Overall, the median compensation of men was 46% higher than that of women. Part of this reflects experience: men had a median of 8 years of professional experience, compared to 5 years for women.
However, experience doesn't explain the whole gap. Last year, women with 6 or fewer years of experience had the same median compensation as men. This year, men earned more at every experience level we could compare: 22% more among those with 3 or fewer years of experience, 31% more among those with 4–6 years, and 32% more among those with 10 or more years.
Link to sectionoverview.gender
Women were far more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ+
This year, we asked about LGBTQ+ identity for the first time. 7% of respondents identified as LGBTQ+, with a large gap by gender: 28% of women did, compared to 4% of men.
Link to section🏳️🌈 LGBTQ+
Fewer respondents than last year
This year's survey received 733 responses, down 26% from 989 last year. The drop came almost entirely from outside TokyoDev's own channels: the number of respondents who found the survey through TokyoDev fell by only 10%, while those coming from Reddit fell by 59% and those from LinkedIn by 50%.
Advertising was one factor. Our total spend on Reddit ads was 21% higher than last year ($1,572 compared to $1,300), but the ads brought in far fewer respondents, so the cost per respondent from Reddit tripled, from $8 to $24.
We'd love your help reaching more people with next year's survey. If you know of any communities or other places where we could share it, please let us know at hello@tokyodev.com.
Link to sectionoverview.source
Plus so much more
There are many more insights to be found in the full survey results. We also offer the ability to create your own custom charts, allowing you to explore the data any way you like. So please, dive in and take a look. If you find any other interesting connections, you're welcome to share them with our community!