In April 2007, A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. It is an amazing amount of work. Close to 33,000 web professionals and junkies alike answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing valuable data related to the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide.

What is more intriguing is that they have made the data available for free from their website. Here is the link to download the survey findings from A List Apart:

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Even better for those of us addicted to crunching numbers, they have made the actual data available for free as well. This is a true testament to the spirit of an open and free web, and I’m very impressed and thankful for their hard work.

So, what can we find out about our fellow Web Junkies in the report?

Well, it looks like we are mostly a white men around 30 with a bachelor’s degree and we like to be called either web designer’s or developers, most of us have blogs.

I also liked seeing that people in this field over the long haul tend to see their salary increase, “From Fig. 3.4, it is clear that the longer respondents are in the field, the more they earn.”

I was shocked to see that there are not more women in the field? For those that are in the field there is some positive info in there about the “Gender Divide”. You know, that divide that generally has men making much more than women for comparable jobs. Here is what the survey says about that:

Fig. 3.5 examines earnings and gender. While overall earnings are comparable, a greater percentage of men than women take home under $20,000. On the flip side, a greater percentage of men than women make more than $80,000; the same is true for earnings of more than $100,000.

Last, I had to chuckle when I saw the information related to “job satisfaction by age group”. The younger we are, the less satisfied we are with our jobs. I think that is true for most of us when we are/were young. The older you get, the more you are able to leverage your experience to get the job you want. In contrast, when you are young you are much more likely to take the job you can get.

Anyway, download the report for yourself and have a look. It is always good to understand how the marketing guys view you