This post is also available in Spanish and French.
The Research Software Engineering (RSE) community continues to grow, and in order for the SSI and the many national RSE associations to properly support it, we need to hear from you. We have launched the 2026 International RSE Survey to help us better understand what RSEs need and how we can advocate for the community with policymakers and funders.
Take the survey
The RSE Survey produces an incredibly valuable trove of data that anyone can use to understand the RSE community, including national associations, funders and policymakers. Please help us provide this data and support the RSE community by completing the survey.
You can complete the 2026 International RSE Survey in English, French, German or Spanish.
You don’t need to be called an RSE to complete the survey. Your formal job title does not matter - if you develop software for academic research as part of your work, we want to hear from you.
The survey collects a considerable amount of detail about your role, the type of work you conduct, your working practices, job satisfaction and demographics. This means it takes around 20 minutes to complete. We appreciate that this is a significant amount of your time to donate, and we thank you for it!
The survey closes on 20 March 2026.
Understanding the RSE community
The last survey took place in 2022 and collected responses from over 1000 people from around the world. With all of the national associations reporting growth, and a number of new countries joining the community, we expect even more responses this year. This will provide an unrivalled overview of the RSE community.
You can view the results of previous surveys, including a worldwide view of the data and breakdowns by country. The survey lets us know that 38% of RSEs working in Germany have a degree in physics and astronomy, while internationally only about 19% do. It is also how we know that about a quarter of RSEs came into their current role from industry. Without it, we wouldn’t know important facts about the demographics of our community, such as the fact that 79% of RSEs identify as male. This information helps us understand whether our endeavours to improve the diversity of the community are succeeding.
If you are interested in diving even deeper into the data, check out the RSE Data Competition where you can reuse data from previous surveys.
We would like to thank everyone who helped construct the survey: Sam Ahern, Jyoti Bhogal, Alex Botzki, Jeff Carver, Ian Cosden, Kim Hartley, Simon Hettrick, Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal, Wioleta Kijewska, Heather Packer, Thomas Pronk, Uwe Schmitt, Anelda van der Waalt, Samantha Wittke, Claire Wyatt, Riva Quiroga and Marek Basovník.
Our particular thanks go to our translators, without whom we couldn’t make the survey accessible in multiple languages: Riva Quiroga, Patricia Loto, Katja Linnemann, Dorothee Stängle and Fares Dhane.
The survey is being conducted with ethics approval from the University of Southampton (Ethics application number: ERGO/FEPS/108663). The first page of the survey provides full details about the conduct of the survey, our approach to privacy and data protection, and your rights as a participant in the survey.
If you’d like to discuss the survey further or have any questions, please reach out to Michael Donnay.