City language hotspots.
Which languages are unusually concentrated in which UK cities?
Exeter developers are 5.9x as likely as the UK average to code mainly in R (11% vs 1.9%; n=418 developers in Exeter).
source: public GitHub profiles · data to 24 September 2026
By city
| City | Figure | Sample (developers) | In words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exeter | 5.9x | 418 | Exeter: R is 5.9x as common as across the UK (11% of developers vs 1.9%; n=418). |
| Oxford | 4.2x | 1,952 | Oxford: R is 4.2x as common as across the UK (7.9% of developers vs 1.9%; n=1,952). |
| Cambridge | 2.8x | 2,335 | Cambridge: R is 2.8x as common as across the UK (5.3% of developers vs 1.9%; n=2,335). |
| South Yorkshire | 2.4x | 1,326 | South Yorkshire: R is 2.4x as common as across the UK (4.4% of developers vs 1.9%; n=1,326). |
| Belfast | 2.2x | 1,141 | Belfast: Go is 2.2x as common as across the UK (5.3% of developers vs 2.4%; n=1,141). |
| Edinburgh | 2.2x | 3,731 | Edinburgh: R is 2.2x as common as across the UK (4.2% of developers vs 1.9%; n=3,731). |
| Brighton and Hove | 2x | 1,012 | Brighton and Hove: PHP is 2x as common as across the UK (6% of developers vs 3.1%; n=1,012). |
| Glasgow | 1.9x | 2,429 | Glasgow: R is 1.9x as common as across the UK (3.6% of developers vs 1.9%; n=2,429). |
| Nottingham | 1.8x | 1,007 | Nottingham: PHP is 1.8x as common as across the UK (5.4% of developers vs 3.1%; n=1,007). |
| Tyne and Wear | 1.7x | 1,181 | Tyne and Wear: PHP is 1.7x as common as across the UK (5.2% of developers vs 3.1%; n=1,181). |
| West Yorkshire | 1.6x | 2,114 | West Yorkshire: PHP is 1.6x as common as across the UK (5% of developers vs 3.1%; n=2,114). |
| Cardiff | 1.6x | 865 | Cardiff: PHP is 1.6x as common as across the UK (4.9% of developers vs 3.1%; n=865). |
| West Midlands | 1.5x | 1,900 | West Midlands: Jupyter Notebook is 1.5x as common as across the UK (13.2% of developers vs 8.7%; n=1,900). |
| Liverpool City Region | 1.4x | 1,104 | Liverpool City Region: C# is 1.4x as common as across the UK (7.4% of developers vs 5.2%; n=1,104). |
| London | 1.4x | 53,629 | London: Swift is 1.4x as common as across the UK (1.6% of developers vs 1.2%; n=53,629). |
| Greater Manchester | 1.4x | 5,121 | Greater Manchester: PHP is 1.4x as common as across the UK (4.1% of developers vs 3.1%; n=5,121). |
| Bristol | 1.3x | 2,711 | Bristol: C++ is 1.3x as common as across the UK (4.4% of developers vs 3.3%; n=2,711). |
| Southampton | 1.3x | 699 | Southampton: Python is 1.3x as common as across the UK (32.6% of developers vs 25.3%; n=699). |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | 1.3x | 373 | Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole: TypeScript is 1.3x as common as across the UK (13.7% of developers vs 10.8%; n=373). |
| Aberdeen | 1.2x | 337 | Aberdeen: Python is 1.2x as common as across the UK (30.9% of developers vs 25.3%; n=337). |
| Leicester | 1.2x | 505 | Leicester: JavaScript is 1.2x as common as across the UK (23.2% of developers vs 19.7%; n=505). |
| Norwich | 1.2x | 462 | Norwich: JavaScript is 1.2x as common as across the UK (22.9% of developers vs 19.7%; n=462). |
| Bath | 1.1x | 440 | Bath: Jupyter Notebook is 1.1x as common as across the UK (9.8% of developers vs 8.7%; n=440). |
| Reading | 1.1x | 590 | Reading: Python is 1.1x as common as across the UK (28.3% of developers vs 25.3%; n=590). |
| York | 1.1x | 495 | York: Python is 1.1x as common as across the UK (27.3% of developers vs 25.3%; n=495). |
How this is measured
For each city with at least 300 developers with a main language: the language most over-represented against the UK (location quotient = city share / UK share), among languages that are the main language of at least 1% of UK developers and of at least 40 in the city. value = the quotient (3.0 = three times the UK rate); value_json: language, city_pct, uk_pct, language_developers. n = the area's developers with a main language. Overall: the highest quotient of any area, with that area's n. Source: public GitHub profiles and their public repositories (the teky search dataset; each finding's date is the date the data runs to). Population: GitHub accounts whose stated location we confirm as the UK or mainland China — the geocoder's country is re-checked against the location text (DevLocation), which drops "Cambridge, MA", "Stanford, CA", "Birmingham, AL" and "Philadelphia, PA"-style mis-codes and bare town names shared with a larger place abroad, and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan; organisation accounts and profiles with no GitHub account are excluded. It describes developers who publish on GitHub and state where they are, not every developer: it leans towards open-source contributors, academics and students, and Chinese developers also use Gitee, so China is under-represented. n = developers (GitHub accounts) unless the insight says otherwise.
Cite this
Free to quote with a credit and a link.
ProdReady Recruitment (2026). City language hotspots. Data to 24 September 2026. https://ProdReadyRecruitment.com/research/dev_language_hotspots
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