Is vibe coding killing off JavaScript skills?

JavaScript is suffering a rapid decline in popularity among coders and employers – and AI-assisted “vibe coding” may be the culprit.

Vibe coding has become a phenomenon of the AI era, with people using natural language to describe the code they want an LLM to deliver instead of learning to code for themselves. With AI often able to knock out passable – if not always immaculately efficient – code, it’s diminishing the demand for human developers, especially for low-level jobs.

That, in turn, appears to be having a dramatic impact on certain programming languages, most notably JavaScript.

JavaScript tumbles down rankings

The IEEE Spectrum has just published its top programming languages of 2025, a round-up it’s been compiling since 2013. This year’s rankings have seen JavaScript tumble from third in 2014 to sixth place this year.

The rankings are compiled by gathering data on the popularity of 64 programming languages from a range of sources, including Google searches, Stack Overflow (where developers go to ask questions), the IEEE Job Site and Discord.

The IEEE suspects that the ability of LLMs to write competent JavaScript code is having a negative drag on the language’s popularity with human coders. “As JavaScript is often used to create web pages, and vibe coding is often used to create websites, this drop in the apparent popularity may be due to the effects of AI,” writes Stephen Cass, the special projects editor at the IEEE Spectrum.

Other sources are also showing a sharp decline in interest for JavaScript skills. The ITjobsWatch site tracks keywords used in IT job adverts to determine the demand for different programming language skills.

In the past six months, JavaScript has fallen 21 places in the rankings (which includes operating systems, cloud services and specific software, as well as programming languages), down to 39th place. In terms of programming languages alone, JavaScript is fourth in the list.

To be clear, there’s no evidence that JavaScript itself is under threat of extinction from the emergence of AI. More that vibe coding erodes the need for developers with JavaScript skills. If AI can generate and maintain React components and bind APIs without human hands ever needing to touch the curly braces, the demand for JavaScript developers diminishes.

Python still king

In terms of languages that remain very much in demand, Python is still king. It tops the IEEE Spectrum rankings by a country mile ahead of Java and C++, and remains the most in demand programming language in IT job ads, ahead of SQL and Java, according to ITJobsWatch.

LLMs can, of course, write Python every bit as competently as they can JavaScript. But Python is the language behind most of the major AI frameworks; it’s the language used to design, test and control most AI systems. If AI does manage to largely eliminate the need for human developers (still a very big “if”), Python looks likely to be the last language standing.

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