Every year, Stack Overflow's Developer Survey asks working developers not just which languages they use, but which ones they actually like using. For nine consecutive years through the 2025 survey, the answer to the second question has been the same: Rust, with 72% of developers who use it saying they want to keep using it — the highest admiration score of any language tracked. That's a notable streak in an industry where tooling fashions usually change faster than that.

Admired isn't the same as widely used

It's worth being clear about what the admiration score does and doesn't tell you. JavaScript remains comfortably the most widely used language overall — used by well over half of professional developers, according to recent survey data — while Rust's usage share is far smaller. Admiration measures satisfaction among the people already using a language, not how many jobs mention it. A language can be loved by a relatively small, specialized group of developers without being anywhere near the most in-demand skill on a typical job board.

What about the pay?

Several independent salary-tracking sites report that Rust carries a meaningful pay premium over comparable general-purpose languages, with estimates commonly falling somewhere in the 15% to 25% range above median developer pay, depending on region and seniority. These figures come from salary aggregators rather than from Stack Overflow's own compensation data directly, and they vary enough between sources that it's worth treating any single number as a rough estimate rather than a guarantee. What's consistent across sources is the direction: Rust developers tend to out-earn developers in more commonly used languages, likely because the pool of experienced Rust engineers is still relatively small relative to demand in the specific domains where it's used.

Where Rust actually gets used

Rust's core appeal is memory safety without a garbage collector, which makes it attractive for systems programming, performance-critical infrastructure, embedded devices, and parts of the blockchain and Web3 stack. It's increasingly showing up in places that used to be C or C++ territory — operating system components, networking tools, and parts of major cloud infrastructure. That's a narrower lane than, say, JavaScript or Python, which is part of why it commands a premium: fewer developers can do this work well, and the work itself tends to sit in systems where reliability bugs are expensive.

Is it worth learning right now?

• If you're already a backend or systems engineer comfortable with C++ or Go, Rust is a reasonable next skill with a clear reputation and salary upside in a specific niche.
• If you're early in your career and building a first marketable skill set, a more widely used language will open more entry-level roles faster — Rust is better as an added specialization than a first language.
• Don't learn Rust purely because of the admiration ranking; make sure there's an actual domain (systems, embedded, blockchain infrastructure) you're aiming to work in where it's genuinely used.
• Expect a steeper initial learning curve than most mainstream languages — the ownership and borrowing model that gives Rust its safety guarantees takes real time to get comfortable with.

The nine-year admiration streak says a lot about how Rust feels to the people who already use it daily. Whether it's the right next move for you depends less on that streak and more on whether the specific kind of engineering work it's built for is the kind of work you're trying to get hired for.